Too Busy to Live

Have you ever been around people who are so busy, constantly interrupted, and have no moment to spare? In fact, when and if they do tell you about themselves, it is just about a bunch of stuff they’re doing or have to do and at the end of the conversation, you feel exhausted just listening to them or feel like you should just leave so they can continue with the million things they have to do. I used to be one of those people and looking back, I feel bad for anyone who tried to get a conversation going that wasn’t part of my agenda or to-do list. I had no time for diversion, because if I fell off task, there would be hell to pay. Or so I thought. I couldn’t imagine a life with unstructured time. I was always catching my breath, running to or from something, never still. I was too busy to live. I took yoga classes, only because I could fit it in, yet my mind would be racing through all the stretches and poses, hoping for the class to be over so I could go on to the next thing. I remember always being concerned with the “bottom line”, what is the point of this conversation, this engagement, this meeting, etc. If there was no “business” reason, it must have been futile. Or so I thought.

Sadly, I still hear those voices in my head. They show up differently, they show up when I am writing at times. They ask me, “why are you wasting your time writing this stuff?” “Who is going to read this and what would be the point of it?” And sometimes, they get really rude and say,” big deal if someone does read it, how is this important or what are you hoping to accomplish?” I used to try to come up with answers to those questions, justifications. It was a constant battle and the writer in me seemed to lose, because those voices had much more business savvy and were better at stripping off the fluff and getting to the bottom line. I don’t justify my writing anymore.

Once I stopped justifying, I realized that I don’t write to get anything. If no one ever read anything that I wrote and if I had an unlimited bank account, I’d still be writing. Not too many might read what I write, but if I don’t write it, then I can be sure that no one will have read it! I write to share, to express, to experience my “I am-ness” , to feel alive. I write to gain clarity. I write to learn from my own experiences. I write because I have the time, I do care, I have no agendas, I have no-where I need to go, no one needs my attention right now, I am fully present in this moment. Writing provides me with the opportunity to be fully present. In this present moment, the possibilities are endless and yet I choose to spend them like this. I choose to select these words and put them in this specific order and send them out into the ethers of the internet. If by chance someone does read them and finds them meaningful in one way or the other, then that is the bonus! Readership is the bonus, not the reason to write. This I have learned and would not trade the path to get here with anything else that might have been. When I get to this spot and feel what I am feeling right now, those voices disappear as if they never existed at all.