Mind-Numbing Busyness--Guest Post by Linda Hoye

One of the benefits—for me and for you—of my belonging to the Redbud Writers Guild is that I get to introduce you to writers. They not only have recently released books but also represent the world. This week my guest is Linda Hoye, from British Columbia, Canada. This excerpt (I found it sounding close to home) is from her new book The Presence of Absence: A Story About Busyness, Brokenness, and Being Beloved.

I’ve been awake most of the night, my mind awhirl with work projects and deadlines, wondering how I’ll get it all done. As usual, sleep comes right before my alarm goes off and I reach over and hit the snooze button.

I have such good intentions about getting up earlier for prayer and meditation but I’m so tired. A few extra minutes of stolen sleep seems more important than anything else. The alarm buzzes for the third time and jars me awake. I give up and reach for my phone to see what’s happened at work since I went to bed.

It starts before we realize it, this busyness propelling us forward through school and on into careers. It helps us find our place. It’s not intrinsically bad. But sometimes something shifts and we lose sight of who we were before. 

Who we were before

Before ratings on performance reviews and promotions became our fix. Before the number of hours given to a corporation and the number of double-and triple-booked slots on our calendar defined our significance and we began to sneer surreptitiously at those who arrive and leave on time and don’t work through their lunch breaks. Before the boundaries between our personal and professional lives blurred and busy became a badge of honour worn with pride. Before we lost the ability or desire to sit in silence and listen.

We stop nurturing relationships and no longer practise our faith in the way we intend. Our creative selves shrivel like dried, crispy leaves in the fall. We feel empty but we’re too busy to pay attention to the gnawing. It chafes, so we get busier to mask the pain.

Once, the workday ended around the time the supper hour began. We transitioned from work to home life, enjoyed an evening meal with those we loved, then a class, a walk in the park, or a visit with a friend. Sometimes we sat on the front step and watched twilight fall.

Who we are now?

Now, on those occasional nights when we force ourselves to leave the office at a reasonable time, we schedule activities in the hour or so we choose to be offline. Too often we don’t have the energy for anything other than falling on the couch in front of the television where we numb ourselves watching Survivor when we’re barely surviving, ourselves.

Our email is out of control and our calendars run our lives. The workday never ends and, thanks to technology, we’re always available. Depending on our circadian rhythm, we’re working and emailing in the wee hours of the night or long before dawn—or both.

We check email and voice mail when we’re on vacation, despite what our out-of-office messages claim. It’s understood we can’t afford to be out of the loop. Something is flying through cyberspace at all hours and landing in our inboxes, requiring something from us. We’re never caught up. We’re never finished. We’ve always got capacity to add one more ball to the ones we’re already juggling.

It won’t always be this way?

We tell ourselves it won’t always be this way. One day we’ll have time to focus on things to nourish our creative right brains. When things slow down, we’ll nurture our faith practices and reconnect our relationships. We’re too busy now taking care of the important and urgent Quadrant 1[i] things: crises and problems that, when they become our focus, lead to burnout. In the elusive someday we’ll take time for Quadrant 2: strategic planning and relationship building; we know this is where the value lies, if only we had time to devote to it. Before we realize what’s happening, we veer off course and head in a direction we never intended.

I scroll through my unread emails. There’s nothing that can’t wait so I stumble out of bed toward the bathroom. I lean in toward the mirror where tired, empty eyes stare back at me and wonder if I’m selling my soul for the sake of a corporation 

Soon, fresh from the shower and with a towel wrapped around me, I flick on the radio and pull out my makeup tray. There’s more news about the latest financial crisis, political turmoil, and natural and unnatural disasters. While I apply minimal makeup and blow dry my hair, I go through the list of things I need to do when I get to the office to prepare for my first meeting of the day. I move through my morning routine like an automaton. And there’s that pressure in my chest again.

I remember something and reach for my phone:

You have one saved message. Press 1 to listen to your saved message.

1.    Hi, Grandma. It’s Makiya. I want to Skype.

My two-year-old granddaughter’s sweet voice makes me smile.

Press 9 to save your message.

9.

[i] The reference to Quadrant 1 and Quadrant 2 comes from Stephen Covey’s Time Management Matrix in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989). Quadrant 1 items are crises, pressing problems, and deadline-driven projects viewed as both important and urgent. Quadrant 2 items are relationship building and strategic planning—that which is important but not urgent. Covey says effective people focus most of their efforts in Quadrant 2.

Linda Hoye lives in British Columbia, Canada with her husband and their doted-upon Yorkshire Terrier but will always be a Saskatchewan prairie girl. She is the author of The Presence of Absence: A Story About Busyness, Brokenness, and Being Beloved and Two Hearts: An Adoptee’s Journey Through Grief to Gratitude. Find her online at www.lindahoye.com where she ponders ordinary days and the thin places where faith intersects. Find her online at A Slice of Life (www.lindahoye.com) Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LindaHoyeWriter/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lindahoye/