Busy

Don’t rejoice in being busy. I have worried on more than one occasion that mom and I have set a bad example for you boys in that regard. Part of that is by accident. Part is, as weird as this may sound, by design. First, let me explain the design part.

We have always wanted you kids to experience a wide variety of things. Try stuff and see how it fits you. Piano, Boy Scouts, sports, music, etc. All those things you do and like at some point were new to you, untried and untested. There are a lot of other activities you may or may not remember. Many didn’t last long. It’s like flavors of ice cream. You try butter brickle because everyone says it’s great and you find out that either they are lying or they have terrible taste in ice cream. Yep, butter brickle is awful. But if you never try it, you never know.  Many of these activities have selfish motivations to them. I can’t express in words how much I love that you both have such a passion for baseball. I could go on about why it’s not only a great sport and a piece of Americana, but also a great metaphor for life. There’s a language to it that we use together all the time. Watching you boys play it is amazing. It’s a gift I cherish. I’m glad soccer never stuck. Had you loved it I am sure I would have felt the same. Maybe. I hope. I mean, it’s soccer so lets just leave it at that.

We’ve also wanted you to understand that sitting around doing nothing is a recipe for disaster. And by “nothing” I mean all the somethings that feel like activity but aren’t. Like video games and social media. They have a place, sure. Nothing wrong with spending some time in mindless entertainment once in a while. Heck, I watched all of “Tiger King” so I can’t judge too harshly. But if you’re not careful you can go down a rabbit hole of uselessness that can be hard to get out of. You only have so much time. Waste a little of it and use the rest wisely. We’ve tried to instill that work ethic in you. If you practice something then you get better at it. If you work hard you are rewarded with the fruits of that labor. There is a lot of satisfaction to a job well done.

But there is a downside to all of this as well. That’s the accidental part I spoke of before. Our schedules are busy. We often run from one thing to the next for days at a time. It can get to be a lot. You will have times in your life like that. When you’re active in a lot of things schedules fill up fast and start to collide with each other. Sometimes you wonder how you got so busy. Actually, you don’t. You know why. You just start to think that maybe you should let a few things go. If you find yourself feeling like that more often than not, then it’s probably time to start clearing your schedule a bit. If you can do that, great. If you can’t then you have to ask yourself why. It’s okay to be busy if it’s filling your time with things you love or feel passionate. Sometimes we just get busy. But the worrisome part is when you start to be proud of it.

Listen to adults talk sometimes. When they first meet up with friends and acquaintances and ask each other how they’ve been what’s one of the first things you hear them say? It’s often about how busy they are. It’s like it’s some weird competition that no one wants to win but secretly keeps trying. Like if we can prove how much busier we are we gain some admiration and standing. It’s kind of sick. You know who we really admire? Retired people. They gave up being busy. They fill their time with things they like or have always wanted to try. We adults think “Someday, I’ll be retired, too” and stare of wistfully into the future.

Yeah, don’t do that. Look, there is a certain amount of things you have to do. You have to mow your lawn, do the laundry, shower. You know, the kind of stuff that makes you look like you have your crap together. You have to work to pay for it as well. Then you’ll have hobbies and passions that will fill more of your time. But if you find yourself feeling like you never have time to do what you want you’d better ask yourself if it’s because you don’t make the time or don’t have the time. If you don’t make it that’s on you. Plan better and do it. If you wasted three hours on snapchat and Youtube then you have a priority problem. But if you can’t find a few hours a week to do what you love then you better start asking yourself what you spend your time doing. Don’t expect others to admire you for how busy you are. They may say they do but that’s because adults don’t always know how to talk to each other in real terms. Instead we use measuring sticks and scales to try to convince each other we’re getting important work done. If we don’t feel accomplished, we can at least sound busy. That may feel like something. But it’s not.