Stop it with the busy

This morning was not one of our more efficient mornings when it came to getting out of the house.  We all woke up just a few minutes later than usual and those few minutes tend to make things noticeably more frantic when trying to get 3 kids out the door, 1 adult to one job and the other to another office.  We all made it, despite some raised voices and (1) construction delay.

I barely made it to my meeting on time, and then floated from task to task for the rest of the day, before coming home to reconnect with the little people.  I didn’t take a lot of time to do much of anything else between tasks but I did force myself to sit outside at lunch and read an actual paper paper – such a luxury these days – and avoid screens for 30m.

This got me thinking about this article I read the other day.  I don’t think I’ve read anything better in ages.  The only thing I’d have done differently would be to change the title from “PLease Stop Complaining About How Busy You Are” to “Shut up with the busy, already.”  Seriously.  The more I hear the “ohmygodimsobusysobusysobusy” refrain, the more I have to peel my eyes out from the back of my head, the results of rolling them so hard.  It’s interesting that people try to “out-busy” each other.  Why would you strive to be more busy? Lord, how dreadful. I’d rather strive to be like my more zen-like friends (hi, Tandy! Hi Martin!)

Everyone’s busy.  I get it.  But guess what?  No one wants to hear about it.

I caught myself answering a “how are you” question with that typical “oh so busy” response the other day but I caught myself: God, how obnoxious.  Am I really so busy that this person cares to hear about it?  Bleh.  No, thank you.

So next time you ask me how I’m doing, I’ll have a host of responses ready, none of which will refer to the state of my Outlook Calendar, to-do list or how much I need to get done in X amount of time.  I promise.