I'm so interested that "good, but busy" rings as valorization to you often; I think when I tell people I'm busy I'm trying to be real (not just say "fine!") about the state of stress that I'm in without unloading all the messy details on them. I appreciate the way you nuance busyness and not busyness as potential goods, depending on the reasons for them. And I love the squirrel-watching anecdote 😊
Just yesterday an acquaintance asked, "How are you," and I reflexively replied, "Oh, busy." And I instantly cringed at my response. I don't like being defined by busyness but it's definitely the feeling that comes immediately to mind.
It's true what the previous commenter said: other responses like "fine," aren't great and often aren't true.
"Anxious and tired but doing my best to follow the will of God in my life" is clunky. ;-D
Anna Quindlen wrote a little book called "A Short Guide to a Happy Life." I keep it even though it's a little sappy because it's a nice reminder that leading a meaningful life is more important than a prestigious job. Like you, I set aside what could have been a more typically "successful" professional career in favor of family. It's good to be reminded of all reasons that was the right choice for me.
I think it was Tsh Oxenreider who wrote in a recent post that her plate was very full, and she liked to say "full" instead of busy. I think perhaps even the imagery there helps communicate something different. A full plate is abundance, perhaps near spilling over, but it somehow feels less like a frantic thing. Busy makes me think of hamster wheels, and busy work. I am guilty of saying, "busy" often, but I've been trying to be more specific. Busy, tired and fine. Quite the trio. But then there's the reality that there are times when answering the question, "how are you?" honestly is just not what either party is looking for! Ha!
I just finished reading this now (I started yesterday and then got busy!). I really loved at the end how you distinguished between the reasons for choosing busyness. Well done.
What a fantastic piece! You made so many excellent points & covered so much ground in such a limited space.
I have so much to say I'm going to limit myself :) - But I think this notion that we give something value by "raising" it to the level of a job is really key and something I've been thinking about for a while (= decade+, lol!) When did we get so upside-down about it? Is it tied, ultimately, to a kind of communist or socialist philosophy? My working theory is that in America, it's coming from our Puritan roots. In Europe, it doesn't seem to exist as much in the same way, although there is a kind of socialist thread of thought that you "owe" it to society to be doing paid work and contributing via taxation - so if you're doing other things like raising children, you aren't really contributing.
I find myself trying to qualify when I use "busy" in response to "how are you?" I'll sometimes say, "busy- but it's all good things" or "the good kind of busy". I think this might be a British phrase, but my husband will sometimes say "things are really full-on" which makes me think of the intensive part of a sporting match and I know it can't last forever, and that's quite comforting for someone who doesn't love to be too busy!
I can recall times where as a stay at home mom when asked how I was doing I didn't say busy, and felt distinctly judged and looked down on. I feel like just from the stay at home mom place, we respond with "busy" often just because we already feel judged and disregarded by most people. I know that so many stay at home moms take on ridiculous amounts of busy work at school, at their kids activities, etc, in part because I think they feel insecure if their hours are not completely occupied somehow. Because, exactly like you say, they are so used to being a commodity and if they aren't at least seen as doing a lot then are they valuable? But I completely agree with your article, I think it really is an engrained attitude that takes a lot to overcome. I think of families of friends I grew up with who thought if they spent any time at home on the weekend they were doing something wrong, let alone the week days when full of full-time work, school, and extra curriculars. People are deeply uncomfortable with not being busy, with being at home, with not being constantly entertained. It really ripples out to every part of life.
DIXIE this was great. Too many tangents one could talk about regarding everything you touched on, but a couple come to mind:
- One of big challenge for us moderns is probably building up the muscles to find and prioritize true, restorative leisure (as opposed to pure entertainment or addictive distraction). Josef Pieper wrote the book Leisure, which everyone seems to reference regarding this... but I have yet to get to. Kind of the idea of a virtue for the vice. ;-)
- For Christians, the Sabbath commandment (really the gift of commanded rest and refreshment!) gets tricky for a lot of us. We might technically cease from *paid work* but all other forms of modern busyness, distraction, technological deluges, activities continue on and we find that we haven't truly received the gift of rest and refreshment. Like you said, parsing this out can look different for different people but I think Christians in 2024 have to be honest about what being humble enough to receive a day of leisure and worship and rest would really look like. Because there's just too many things to keep us on a hamster wheel outside of paid work.
But then again, all spiritual practices are pretty counter-cultural. :)
My experience with busyness has been a guilt-ridden battle, only with an added onus. Whatever I do in life, I need to make money. This particular element came into my life when I married into a very industrious family whose "god" was making as much money as possible. Every penny on the table or satisfaction was not attained. Perfection was another requirement, especially for one member of the family. Thank goodness my husband realized after moving away from the core location of everyone that there were other things to do. I always felt guilty about being a stay-at-home mom even to the point of volunteering at her daycares. it was my solemn vow that I didn't want some other woman to raise my child. She got plenty of socialization with other kids. I got to watch her grow each step of the way. And I spent my husband's money wisely and frugally. That leads me to mention one thing in your essay in which I disagree. Women, mothers especially, are a HUGE part of the economic success of any country. We are the consumers of products made by all these busy companies. By voting with our dollars, we control the success or failure of a product line. If women were only busy at work and not spending a few hours a week shopping for herself and her family, the economic would sink like the Titanic and never some back up.
Loved the essay on busyness. It reminded me that once in college I had a teacher in some hard science who was complaining that all his art major students were always late because they were off "staring at a cloud." I didn't have a major yet, but staring at clouds sounded nice to me, and eventually I ended up in the humanities lol.
I'm so interested that "good, but busy" rings as valorization to you often; I think when I tell people I'm busy I'm trying to be real (not just say "fine!") about the state of stress that I'm in without unloading all the messy details on them. I appreciate the way you nuance busyness and not busyness as potential goods, depending on the reasons for them. And I love the squirrel-watching anecdote 😊
Just yesterday an acquaintance asked, "How are you," and I reflexively replied, "Oh, busy." And I instantly cringed at my response. I don't like being defined by busyness but it's definitely the feeling that comes immediately to mind.
It's true what the previous commenter said: other responses like "fine," aren't great and often aren't true.
"Anxious and tired but doing my best to follow the will of God in my life" is clunky. ;-D
Anna Quindlen wrote a little book called "A Short Guide to a Happy Life." I keep it even though it's a little sappy because it's a nice reminder that leading a meaningful life is more important than a prestigious job. Like you, I set aside what could have been a more typically "successful" professional career in favor of family. It's good to be reminded of all reasons that was the right choice for me.
I think it was Tsh Oxenreider who wrote in a recent post that her plate was very full, and she liked to say "full" instead of busy. I think perhaps even the imagery there helps communicate something different. A full plate is abundance, perhaps near spilling over, but it somehow feels less like a frantic thing. Busy makes me think of hamster wheels, and busy work. I am guilty of saying, "busy" often, but I've been trying to be more specific. Busy, tired and fine. Quite the trio. But then there's the reality that there are times when answering the question, "how are you?" honestly is just not what either party is looking for! Ha!
I just finished reading this now (I started yesterday and then got busy!). I really loved at the end how you distinguished between the reasons for choosing busyness. Well done.
What a fantastic piece! You made so many excellent points & covered so much ground in such a limited space.
I have so much to say I'm going to limit myself :) - But I think this notion that we give something value by "raising" it to the level of a job is really key and something I've been thinking about for a while (= decade+, lol!) When did we get so upside-down about it? Is it tied, ultimately, to a kind of communist or socialist philosophy? My working theory is that in America, it's coming from our Puritan roots. In Europe, it doesn't seem to exist as much in the same way, although there is a kind of socialist thread of thought that you "owe" it to society to be doing paid work and contributing via taxation - so if you're doing other things like raising children, you aren't really contributing.
I find myself trying to qualify when I use "busy" in response to "how are you?" I'll sometimes say, "busy- but it's all good things" or "the good kind of busy". I think this might be a British phrase, but my husband will sometimes say "things are really full-on" which makes me think of the intensive part of a sporting match and I know it can't last forever, and that's quite comforting for someone who doesn't love to be too busy!
I can recall times where as a stay at home mom when asked how I was doing I didn't say busy, and felt distinctly judged and looked down on. I feel like just from the stay at home mom place, we respond with "busy" often just because we already feel judged and disregarded by most people. I know that so many stay at home moms take on ridiculous amounts of busy work at school, at their kids activities, etc, in part because I think they feel insecure if their hours are not completely occupied somehow. Because, exactly like you say, they are so used to being a commodity and if they aren't at least seen as doing a lot then are they valuable? But I completely agree with your article, I think it really is an engrained attitude that takes a lot to overcome. I think of families of friends I grew up with who thought if they spent any time at home on the weekend they were doing something wrong, let alone the week days when full of full-time work, school, and extra curriculars. People are deeply uncomfortable with not being busy, with being at home, with not being constantly entertained. It really ripples out to every part of life.
DIXIE this was great. Too many tangents one could talk about regarding everything you touched on, but a couple come to mind:
- One of big challenge for us moderns is probably building up the muscles to find and prioritize true, restorative leisure (as opposed to pure entertainment or addictive distraction). Josef Pieper wrote the book Leisure, which everyone seems to reference regarding this... but I have yet to get to. Kind of the idea of a virtue for the vice. ;-)
- For Christians, the Sabbath commandment (really the gift of commanded rest and refreshment!) gets tricky for a lot of us. We might technically cease from *paid work* but all other forms of modern busyness, distraction, technological deluges, activities continue on and we find that we haven't truly received the gift of rest and refreshment. Like you said, parsing this out can look different for different people but I think Christians in 2024 have to be honest about what being humble enough to receive a day of leisure and worship and rest would really look like. Because there's just too many things to keep us on a hamster wheel outside of paid work.
But then again, all spiritual practices are pretty counter-cultural. :)
My experience with busyness has been a guilt-ridden battle, only with an added onus. Whatever I do in life, I need to make money. This particular element came into my life when I married into a very industrious family whose "god" was making as much money as possible. Every penny on the table or satisfaction was not attained. Perfection was another requirement, especially for one member of the family. Thank goodness my husband realized after moving away from the core location of everyone that there were other things to do. I always felt guilty about being a stay-at-home mom even to the point of volunteering at her daycares. it was my solemn vow that I didn't want some other woman to raise my child. She got plenty of socialization with other kids. I got to watch her grow each step of the way. And I spent my husband's money wisely and frugally. That leads me to mention one thing in your essay in which I disagree. Women, mothers especially, are a HUGE part of the economic success of any country. We are the consumers of products made by all these busy companies. By voting with our dollars, we control the success or failure of a product line. If women were only busy at work and not spending a few hours a week shopping for herself and her family, the economic would sink like the Titanic and never some back up.
Loved the essay on busyness. It reminded me that once in college I had a teacher in some hard science who was complaining that all his art major students were always late because they were off "staring at a cloud." I didn't have a major yet, but staring at clouds sounded nice to me, and eventually I ended up in the humanities lol.