The culture of busy

Doing nothing is better than being busy doing nothing
Lao Tzu quotes

Thanks to a brilliant post by Joely Black about taking care of yourself and a conversation I had with a fellow teacher trainee today, I started thinking about the culture of busy from a few different perspectives.

I’m a person who loves doing all kinds of things and participating in everything. Consequently, some of my weeks tend to be a bit hectic, because I’m still learning the whole don’t-schedule-yourself-into-oblivion thing. For several years, the end of spring and late autumn have been all about a jam-packed schedule and three meetings a night.

I know very well that I spread myself too thin with all this. Add to the equation the tendency to forget lunch and to drink more coffee than water during the day, and it’s no wonder it gets rough. It’s not something to be proud of.

Except that in some circles, it strangely seems to be just that. During the past two weeks alone, I’ve been in conversations that strangely resemble status battles, and the game is “who has the tightest schedule and less free time”. There is of course an element of complaint in there as well, but at the same time it’s a sort of martyr duel.

You know, “yesterday, I spent eight hours at the training school and wrote my lesson plans until midnight.” “Well, yeah, I had to write mine three times and I only got five hours of sleep last night.”

It’s not just the teacher trainees, either. It seems to be a badge of honor to do so much work. Furthermore, it seems to be a badge of honor to work yourself to the bone without taking care of your own basic needs.

My brain knows it’s stupid. Some part of me, though, does resonate with the glorification of too much work. Maybe that’s why we’re not complaining about the ridiculous imbalances of work between one student group and the next – the ones who get off easy have nothing to complain about, and the ones who do the extra work can boast about how much they had to do to get the grade.

I’m not even going to go into the topic of whether or not you’re actually accomplishing anything or whether or not you love what you do. I know I’m working hard to get my teacher qualifications, and it’s something I love doing. Someone else might be working hard for a cause that’s completely irrelevant to me but very important to them.

Either way, though, there is something profoundly wrong about glorifying a schedule that’s packed full from morning to midnight. Or to be less judgmental – there is something profoundly contradictory about glorifying the culture of busy and my own values.

Now if I could only find a way to convince myself of this – and find a constructive alternative mindset – before I drive myself into a burnout. Here’s to hoping.

Thank you for stopping by, keep catching your own insightings!

Love,

Sari