I had a topic all ready to write about today, but I’m throwing it out the window, and instead I’m going to talk about the recent New York Times editorial “The Busy Trap” that people have been sharing like crazy. Sometimes extremely busy people, which is giving the entire conversation an extra dose of (unintentional?) humor.
I am actually very torn by the idea of the culture of busyness that apparently is not just a Silicon Valley thing (although I can’t pretend to be very surprised it also lives in places like Manhattan). First off, the whole conversation automatically comes from a place of privilege–people who can choose whether or not to be busy because they have time that is not taken up with working to support their families or working insane hours so they will not be fired (and I’m sure there are other examples you can think of).
That being said, it’s still an interesting cultural phenomenon for many of those in the middle class. I’ve certainly seen it countless times here in the Bay Area. And on the one hand, I’m impressed by the busy (which is, after all, partly the point), while on the other hand, it irritates me to no end.
Busy busy.
Sometimes, after all, the busy is really cool. I admire people who have decided to embrace their passions, or go out and change the world, or meet tons of fascinating people, or travel around the world. Their social calendars sound exciting, and when you ask them, at the occasional party, what they’ve been up to, they always have something to say beyond, “Eh. I work. And then I don’t work.” There is a certain energy some of these people have that can be quite intoxicating, as they catapult from event to event and obligation to hobby. And I’m really happy for them and encourage them to follow their dreams.
But on the flip side, it’s hard to become Friends with a capital F with these busy people. Because all those activities take time, and it has to come from somewhere. And when you try to get together and have to schedule a month ahead…to have dinner…and there’s not even kids or babysitters or anything involved…and this happens every time you try to schedule…well, it becomes an obstacle. And it is difficult to build intimacy with local friends who you are not able to see once a month or so, at least during some formative period at the beginning of the friendship (honestly I’d say every other week, but Silicon Valley has forced me to adapt my expectations).
I am not busy. Not like that. I have my weeks that go off the rails, and I travel a fair amount, but here is my secret. I like not being busy. I like having time when I’m sitting around thinking. I like having lazy Sundays when I sleep in, take my dog to the park, read a novel, and maybe go out for sushi in the evening. I like having time to write this blog. I like having time to notice what’s going on around me, and I like silence, and I like days when I have nothing scheduled. And sometimes at parties, all I have to say is, “Well, I’ve been writing.”
Not to give you the wrong idea. I still have stuff I have to get done, obligations to meet, appointments to keep, projects going full swing. I vigilantly guard my writing time, even when I’m invited to do fun stuff. But it’s a very different pace. It is definitely a privilege.
And I have the time to appreciate that.
The Practical Free Spirit 
Yeah, that article definitely resonated with people. It was all over my Facebook feed. I read it and was like, “Huh, yeah. I guess there are some people who are pretty busy…”
I totally agree. I find it really hard to be friends with people who are too busy. If I go out to dinner with someone and we’re done eating (which, in America, can sometimes take just 45 minutes) and then they’re like, “Well…I gotta go to the other thing” then I kind of feel like I got all dressed up for nothing. I mean, the point of seeing people is not to just touch base…it’s because you actually enjoy spending time with them. That thing, where you’re with them, in the place…that’s kind of the whole point of being friends. If you’re not doing that, then the friendship isn’t doing anyone very much good.
I love the way you put this: “The point of seeing people is not to just touch base….it’s because you actually enjoy spending time with them.” Yes! Last night I had dinner with a friend and we lingered over it for a few hours, and honestly we would have probably stayed even longer except the restaurant was closing. I enjoy lingering. I’d say the only exception is when I’m meeting someone in the middle of the day/afternoon–then I linger less in order to protect my writing time.
My boss at the World Bank is from Colombia and he is a world-champion slow eater. He’ll order a fruit plate and finish it over the course of 3 or 4 hours of good conversation. He says its just how people do things in Colombia. I am seriously impressed with this ability. I always finish my entrees in under half an hour and then have to sit around behind an empty plate (which creates pressure to leave…a pressure that I’m fairly good, however, at resisting). I really want to learn how to become a slow eater.
Ditto. My wife and I are extremely busy–by necessity, not by choice–and yet when we go out with friends, it’s not a “social appointment”, it’s “hanging out”. A lunch barbeque often bleeds over to dinner over long and entertaining conversation.
Yay for hanging out! I think that frame of mind often fosters the best conversations.
I’m privileged in the same way, and it’s wonderful. Plus this article fits in thematically with my passion as of late, which is making people realize that they work too much for too little.
I’m glad you touched on the “Friends with a capital F” issue as well – I’ve run into the same problem, and it’s sad to see.
Yes! I’ve been noticing your Facebook statuses about this subject.
And yeah, the Friends issue can be a bit of a bummer. Of course, when I meet someone who can go have dinner with me (or whatever), that means I love them EVEN more.
If we don’t take time to be humans being, then spending all our time as humans doing is going to shorten our lives significantly … which is the conclusion at the end of the article.
It’d be interesting to drop in and see these ‘busy’ people every couple of years and chart how their lives change – or not – over time.
Maybe it’s a plot by cities. City needs that frenetic energy to exist so it forces it’s inhabitants to go faster and faster until they flame out, then it chucks them into the countryside to live or die … it doesn’t care, so long as they breed their replacements!!!
Ha! I wonder about regional differences. You might be right that it is a city/country sort of distinction. Or it might be an age distinction. Hard to know, although part of me wishes I could live in ALL the places and find out!
Right there with you on all of this! I’ve got several groups of friends who are so ridiculously busy that scheduling anything requires a minimum of a month. Sometimes two. It’s madness! And they’re not happy. Just occupied! I don’t get it. Not at all.
You know what sometimes happens to me? I’m pretty social for a period of time, and then I get so tired of all the scheduling madness that I take a break and stop scheduling anything. Maybe that’s why I’m not as busy. 😉
I don’t like being Not Busy. Because if I’m not busy then I have a day when little or nothing gets accomplished, and almost every one of those days bothers me.
Of course, it depends how one defines “busy”. I define it as “doing things on my To Do list” not all of which are Super Important. It’s not work-related like the article talks about; when I leave work, I leave work and I don’t think I’d have it any other way. But spending a day lazily surfing the internet and playing Freecell just feels vacant.
Besides work and college, I have a semi-monthly library history presentations. I read: for fun, for school and for the presentations – and my Goodreads To Read list is 400+ books long. There is of course all the normal stuff in life – cleaning, bills, misc minor projects, watching some movie that came up available on my hold list at the library.
Plus I have a bunch of hobbies that don’t really overlap: Magic The Gathering has tournaments and special events, geocaching has some events, and gaming generally involves playing at the store on certain nights almost every week. The gaming groups have only a partial overlap; my geocaching social circle has almost no overlap with gaming. Plus a few friends who don’t rarely or never do anything of the above that I still like to see. I’m busy because I have Saturdays where I go to a geocaching event in the morning, a Magic The Gathering tournament in the afternoon, and hope the MTG tourney ends in time for me to get to a local sports bar to see the UFC PPV. Excluding anything else like travel, visiting friends from out of town, or special events – conventions, library events, a debate amongst local political candidates for August’s election.
I have known many people who bemoan they are bored. I never want to use that word to describe myself.
Oh, I agree that it’s a continuum. I don’t like the idea of being bored either. Perhaps there is a difference between being busy for the sake of being busy and being busy because there are awesome things you want to be doing…. Hmm.
[…] on the surface at least, it seems to focus heavily on appearances. In addition, there is the “always busy” mentality. Meanwhile, we like to speculate on whether social media is making us more lonely. All of […]
[…] Silicon Valley kind of irritated me: too much engineer speak, too much social awkwardness, too much busyness competition, and not enough appreciation of the arts. But just when I was beginning to consider a move, it […]