I'm so Busy. I Call Bullshit.

Let's put our bullshit goggles on the table for a few minutes.  I've found the word "busy" gets tossed around like some sort of default status symbol for success. Like somehow the absence of chaotic busyness equates to failure.  Take a moment to think about the last few times you've asked someone how they were doing... I'm willing to guess their answer involved some variation of how busy they were.

Why is it that we associate busyness with a higher status in North America?  It isn't the case in Europe, it's just the opposite over there.  They respect a balanced lifestyle of work and pleasure - in fact, it's expected.

I'll admit to subscribing to this too busy notion for a while - that being overwhelmingly busy made me feel like I was making progress.  But when I look back at it without my bullshit goggles, the only real time I felt busy was when my days were filled with uninvolving, routine tasks. When I'm doing the things I love those thoughts rarely if ever occur to me.

There are several people I respect a great deal in the business and photography world - never once have I heard any of them say I'm just so busy.  However, I hear it daily on facebook, at the coffee shop and pretty much anywhere I go.  More often than not, they're not busy at all. They're just filling their days with bullshit stuff or pumping their own tires to inflate a comforting feeling of success.

I'm pleased to report that this past Fall weekend of unbusyness had every ounce of success squeezed out of it from a leisurely family stroll to the park to our lazy living room stare-at-our-newborn baby marathons.  No phones, no emails, no nodda... well my camera of course - but set to Dad mode only.