Sunday, January 20, 2013

A Brief Reflection on Being Busy

I hear people talking.

Thankfully, the people I hear talking are actually present, not hallucinations, but perhaps the relief of that distinction is best left for another post.

But I really do hear people talking. I think I hear mothers talking most of all, and the crux of everything that I hear from them is that they are busy.

They are busy getting the kids to school. They are busy at their jobs. They are busy with soccer practice, football games, violin lessons, Scouts. They are busy taking two children to three activities in one evening.

Their busyness is all-consuming.

They are even busy talking about how busy they are. And if they're not talking about it, they're posting and blogging about it.  It's like everybody is engaged in a Busy Olympics where if they win they get...what?

This preoccupation with needing to do everything--with making sure everybody in the house does everything--has really impacted me lately. In fact, it has made me want to do...nothing.

Instead of packing each day, each evening, each weekend with more activities than we can sanely endure, I want to set aside one day each week, even just one evening, to stay home with my family.

I want to build a wall around this time so that we can do nothing, and so that we can do it together.

And I want to know what your family does when they do nothing together.