The Disease of Being Busy / Cameron Moll / Designer, Speaker, Author

The Disease of Being Busy

published 12 November 2014

Oh how disease + being busy resonates with me.

Every technology or product that pitches “do ______ in less time” inevitably creates more busyness than it eliminates. Clearly the industry of efficiency is not calmness, but industriousness. ¹

I wrote in my journal this morning. Wrote. With a pen and paper. It took me 30 minutes to write what would have taken 10 minutes or less to type.² I am okay with this.

Omid Safi has eloquently penned yearnings that I wish were my own and that I intend to make my own if I have any hope of favoring quality of life over quantity:

When I ask, “How are you?” that is really what I want to know.
I am not asking how many items are on your to-do list, nor asking how many items are in your inbox. I want to know how your heart is doing, at this very moment. Tell me. Tell me your heart is joyous, tell me your heart is aching, tell me your heart is sad, tell me your heart craves a human touch. Examine your own heart, explore your soul, and then tell me something about your heart and your soul.
Tell me you remember you are still a human being, not just a human doing. Tell me you’re more than just a machine, checking off items from your to-do list….
Let us insist on a type of human-to-human connection where when one of us responds by saying, “I am just so busy,” we can follow up by saying, “I know, love. We all are. But I want to know how your heart is doing.”

In the end, while technology is regarded often unjustly as culprit rather than scapegoat, unquestionably it has enhanced the pace at which we busy ourselves with tasks, whether mundane or extraordinary. Technology is advancing faster than self-discipline. Mastery of regimen must begin with mastery of self.

Easier said than done.

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¹ Noted without comment, antonyms for “industrious” include “lazy”, “indolent”, and “unemployed”.

² Admittedly this was the first time I had written in my paper journal in several months. I write, that is to say type, fairly regularly with Day One.