Anyone else just feel like "busy" is a cop out these days?
Don't we all have the same 24 hours in everyday?
How many times a day do you hear or say I just haven't had time!
How many times a day do you hear or say I just haven't had time!
If we are being honest with ourselves and the people around us, shouldn't we be saying I haven't MADE time for insertwhateveryouhavebeenputtingoff?
Isn't it really about prioritizing and CHOOSING what we spend our time on?
Important (to us) things are what we make time for.
How many of the things we HAVE to do (I know we all say " I have to _______") are REALLY a necessity to make it through the day? I know I say this often and those HAVE To's are not really have To's at all, we are all just ok with saying it about nearly everything anymore that we don't question what we really should be doing instead of those Have To's, it's not easy or fun but for me it's doing the right thing.
I've been working hard on not saying "busy" in reference to my time and being true to
my priorities and not just what is easy.
For me, other than taking care of our family, taking care of our home is a close 2nd. Being gone from our home 10 hours a day does not make that an easy task, but it's still pretty high up there in priority we don't get to prioritize by what is easiest.
Constant comments from women about how they don't have time to organize, or mop, even doing the dishes is dramatic, and how they are too BUSY to keep up on it and then they turn around and are on Facebook or Instagram with multiple posts a day, followed up by shopping online for clothes they won't have time to wash.
These are just killing me, I just want to say "hellllllo, you just said you haven't had time to clean your kitchen but you managed to squeeze in 12 Instagram videos, 4 pictures, 2 complaints about your kids behavior and 3 dog pictures?"
Complaints about how much laundry they have to do and how it takes all their time, but no effort to do anything about it, just continuing to add to the problem.
Same thing with the gym 5 days a week, the multiple moms groups, the just for fun gym class you teach and the blogger meet-ups and online friend swaps for seasonal items. I'm not saying anyone should skip out on any of these things if someone enjoys them.
But please stop saying you are so BUSY when you are CHOOSING to make yourself busy.
We can all see your priorities, they are clear in your comments about not having time for this or that and the pictures of laundry.
I'm not perfect, I still expect too much of myself and put too much on our schedule.
I do spend a little time on Facebook and it's SO frustrating having to sort through friends posts and complaints and pity parties. I feel bad that I have just flat out hidden friends entirely because I am not willing to spend what little time I allow myself for browsing to be taken up by this, whatever it is, a contest? Whoever makes the most work for themselves wins? Whoever has some seriously crazy priorities (to me anyway) gets a prize? When did being BUSY turn into a good thing and why are people expecting praise for it?
I really do try to keep things light, sorry for the heavy but I thought I might explode if I didn't get it out there!
Great post! While I am guilty of this sometimes myself, I completely agree with what you are saying!
ReplyDeleteI try to remind myself that I can do anything, but not everything.
ReplyDeleteI wish I didn't fall into the "I have so much to do that I can't possibly finish, so I'm not going to do anything" ie I'm going to fail at my goals, so whatever. Scaling said goals to a realistic level would be much more productive ;-)
I do agree with a lot of what you've written. We do choose what we get done, and what we have yet to do. People do use "I don't have time" when really they mean "I don't feel like doing that" or "I don't want to make time from that and cut time out from XYZ". But sometimes....sometimes they really don't have time. Because they are busy.
ReplyDeleteYou say "Don't we all have the same 24 hours in everyday?"
And I say yes, we do. However, you have 2 sets of 24hrs in your house to get things done (you and a spouse). So should single parents not be able to say they are busy, even though by your "we all have 24hr" theory they ARE down by 24hrs in comparison and therefore most likely they are...BUSY.
I don't understand why you see busy as a bad word. Sometimes we are busy, sometimes we have down time.
Also regarding prioritizing. We most certainly CAN prioritize from easiest on. In fact, sometimes that's the best way to get rolling at knocking stuff out of the way and getting things done (debt snowball comes to mind, start with teh smallest easiest then work the way towards the big bad things) Everyone has different ways.
YES! We all have the same amount of time. Your priorities are not my priorities, even if what you accomplish sounds nice. Along the same lines is when someone says "we should get together" then never calls. No we shouldn't get together, because I'm not a priority in your life, so don't insult me by saying I mean something to you, when clearly I don't. I have time for the people in my life who I want in my life.
ReplyDelete