I teach college, which means that I deal with a lot of students every semester, and each student has his or her particular issues. I am expected to work with and past these issues. This makes me busy.
I teach writing, which means that I have many, many essays to grade over the course of the year. Each essay presents its own set of problems that I have to not only explain but also suggest ways to work though and then assign a grade to it. Oh, and I often let the students rewrite the essays, and then I have to grade them again. This makes me busy.
I have a family. If you have a family, you know how much busier that makes me. If you don't have a family, you're not as busy as me, so don't even try to say that you are. I was without a husband until I was 32 and without a kid until I was 35, so I remember very well what it was like to not have a husband or a child, and I thought I was busy then, but I definitely wasn't, so no thank you, you singles.
Did I mention that I have other obligations at work? Did I mention that I work out to take care of my body and my mind? Did I mention that I'm in two bands? Did I mention that I have to read at least a half hour before I go to sleep each night so I'm able to slow my mind down enough to be able to drift off? Did I mention that I am susceptible to anxiety? Did I mention that I am a people-pleaser and a perfectionist who has to fight against the tendency to believe that I am not only NOT doing enough, but I'm also not doing it WELL enough?
I am SO busy, and SO WHAT?
There's this association we make with the word busy. We connect it with the word stress. If we're busy, we must be stressed, and we'd be less stressed if we weren't so busy.
I'm going to throw down the "Are you kidding me??" gauntlet in two ways.
First, being busy is doing life. We do the things we do because they are choices. I work, so that takes time out of my day. I must work, yes, but I chose to teach English, and if I wasn't grading essays, I'd be doing charting as a nurse or running through quality control protocol on a product. The nature of work is that there is work involved. People get real philosophical about making work their passion or finding meaning in the work they do. I'm not saying that's not possible or that it's not good to find your work to be meaningful. What I do reject, though, is when we are somehow surprised that when we're at work, we're working, meaning that we're busy. That's what work should be, right?
And what about other aspects of life that don't include work? These things are about choices. I chose to have a family. I choose to be in bands. If I get down on myself because I think I'm not doing enough, that's something I am doing to myself.
Of course, there are things that happen that are out of our control. My kid gets sick and needs to stay home. I have an anxiety attack. My car breaks down. Yes, I get stressed about that stuff because I prefer to be in control, but I have to reframe it. I take care of my kid. I take care of myself. I get the car into the shop. I do what needs to be done because that's what living is.
Now, let me say that I live a comfortable existence with a good job, a home, a car, and a healthy family. If you do not have those things, I'm not talking to you. Don't get offended. I'm talking about people like me who, when complaining about not being able to decide between going to the Olive Garden or Applebee's for lunch, someone should maybe hit us upside the head with the ubiquitous "First-World Problems!" hashtag. It's not tough on the streets for us, and we need to stop conflating "busy" with "stress."
And that's another thing. I get more stressed when I'm NOT busy. I like having things to do. I am akin to a toddler: we enjoy structured time. It helps us be productive. I know this because I am a teacher who has had summers off in the past. These summers have led to:
- One summer searching for and ultimately buying both a house and a dog.
- One summer searching for and ultimately dating the man I ended up marrying.
- One summer having a total meltdown because, I honestly believe (in part) I didn't have enough structured activity keeping me busy and because I am, at my heart, lazy, all my plans that depended on keeping myself accountable went out the window.
People think that teachers have it so easy with our summers "off." No. First, we spend summers getting ready for the school year, and second, we do the stuff that we can't otherwise do when school is in session, like make major life decisions or finally have a minor mental breakdown that made me understand what I need to do to take care of myself. Now, I either teach during the summer or I have a specific schedule of events I follow that get me out of the house and participating in life (or, as most would say, BUSY).
So I would like it if folks could let go of the idea that busy equals stress. It creates a hostile environment regarding getting work done, and it's also not true for many people like myself. If I feel like I'm getting stressed because of all the choices I've made that have led up to the stress, I don't make everyone else miserable by talking about how so very insanely busy I am.
I make a different choice because, dammit, I can, and so can most of us. Maybe if we lived in a society where there was no audience for people who want to cry about how stressed they are because of how busy they are because of the choices they've made, they might make better choices to begin with. Seriously. If I worked in a place where it was actively discouraged to complain about busy-ness, maybe there would be less stress and more, well, just doing things. So instead of me asking someone how they're doing, instead of saying, "Oh my god, I'm just so busy! I'm up to my eyeballs!" they'd say, "I'm doing the stuff of work," and I'd say, "Cool; me too," and maybe that would lead to more conversations about baseball, how to best serve students, or even leave room for complaining about stuff that might actually be solved because of the complaining. Complaining about being busy is not useful. Everyone else is also busy, and it doesn't make the work get done. So, just do work. Save your feelings for stuff that can benefit from them.
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