Busy or free?

Glance at a busy road and you see everyone rushing, a pedestrian to a cyclist to a motorist. Of course, every second person doesn’t definitely have a flight to catch! We don’t know why we are scampering but no one has patience. Forget the rush on the road, look how busy you are. Try to recollect when you could pursue the thing you like. We love so many things but run short of time for it. ‘Who has the time?’ is a refrain we have got used to hearing in the IT age.
What we are doing becomes immaterial. Being busy has become a sort of prerequisite, especially of the urban life. With a fierce competition around, many are engrossed in academics and professions. It’s a demanding life where no one is free. Forget students and professionals, housewives and maids, too, are racing against time. Being engrossed in our activities is fine but think; are we really busy or we pretend to be?
Busyness has become a parameter of success. We are not quite at ease saying we are free. In some way, we try hard to prove we are occupied. Busier we seem more successful we are considered. No one bothers to check what a busy person is actually doing. Can busyness be a yardstick to measure success?
Instead of how busy one seems, it’s better to see how far a person has reached. All successful people decide their priorities. Owing to their time management, they do justice to both, profession and family. They steer clear of all sorts of triviality. Busy or not, every move they make takes them forward. Do we say business tycoons like Ratan Tata or Narayan Murthy find time for social service or US president Barrack Obama for holidaying with his family because they’ve nothing better to do? They fix their priorities immaculately. That’s why let’s assess people in terms of their achievements and not busyness.
Being busy is very subjective as there is much more to it than what meets the eye. A person doing nothing could be engrossed in something very constructive. When one is busy ideating, the busyness need not reflect in action simultaneously.
On the contrary, people may appear busy but end up doing nothing at the end of the day. Being busy in attending parties, campus gossips and social networking is an exercise in futility. Even a housewife with poor management skills would have hardly any time on hand! Here manifest busyness is no indicator of latent inefficiency. So, all that is important is where one has reached and not how busy one looks.
This pseudo-busyness can take toll on relationships. Not being deft at time management, many people don’t find time for families and there’s a communication breakdown. To me, bringing things on track shouldn’t be difficult, if they are moving off-track that is. For us scribes, work stretches over 10 to 12 hours a day but in our family, we have an excellent communication. Fix the proprieties and rest assured.
Undue insistence on being busy could be a psychological problem. It’s not an encouraging sign when we feel uncomfortable doing nothing. It shows we aren’t quite happy with ourselves and sure of what we do or don’t do. We may be busy out of insecurity, for not being at peace with ourselves. Once at a party, on being asked if he had enjoyed the food, celebrated litterateur Gorge Bernard Shaw replied, “I enjoyed myself.” Here’s the key: let’s be happy in our own company…
- KanChan

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Old Monk in New Bottle

Image
And the mystical monk landed on the shores of the Wiseland, which he had left four decades ago in the pursuit ‘Enlightenment’   A sea of people had come to receive him… what if ‘atheist’ government had issued orders to ban monasteries and forced many ‘monks’ like him to return to their motherland… This mystical monk was sure of the ‘grand reception’ in the Wiseland, his motherland… He had hoisted his sails when the wind was just right… The monk had harbored the thoughts of offering sermons and discourses to the men of Wiseland as he guessed they would be in the need of ‘Wise words from the mystical man’ He had prepared to talk about Life, God, Spirituality, Relationships, Meditation, Laws, Beauty and Death ‘Wait, hear us out before you speak, said the First Citizen of the Wiseland ‘We have heard a lot of discourses. We know Sermon on the Mountain. We have heard of Vedas and yes, also read the ‘Prophet’ by The Kahlil Gibran’…. ‘We are a civilized country. We are litera
Read more

Best among the best

A bagful of diamonds! Their radiance is amazing. You don’t know which one to choose, as each is no less bright and beautiful. The right choice is tough. It gets tougher when it’s about choosing best among the best. Of course, not often do we encounter such a situation but when we do, we would be lost. Similarly, it’s a rarity to have our mind full of great thoughts. When it happens, how do we select best among the best? Sometimes, yes only sometimes, everything around appears nice. It is indeed a tough ask to choose nicer among the nicest or prioritise. What do you do? Perhaps, random and blind pick-and-choose helps. Don’t think; just pick up any diamond from the bag. When the mind is overflowing with meaningful thoughts, close your eyes, go blank and hold on to any of them. Trust it and rest assured. There may be many roads leading to the same destination yet we have to choose one. That done, move full throttle backing your instincts and you won’t lose direction. You will reach your
Read more

A big yes to ‘no’

Are you an upright person? Give yourself a small test. How many times can you say ‘no’ with conviction? It’s tough. Inability to pronounce this word has spelt trouble for me several times. And the inability of making this dignified denial seems to have gifted me with a recurring cough pattern! For over a month I was unable to tackle my cough in spite of medication. After a little introspection, I realised diet was the problem. I avoided eating everything that could have caused cough. In came a loud ‘no’ to all sorts of cold and oily stuff, rice and curd. At my level, I succeeded but when it came to saying ‘no’ to people, I fumbled. At office, home or a relative’s place, people could find a soft target in me. They would find all ways to convince me to eat ‘restricted’ stuff. If I refused to have vadapav, they would say “ At least eat these two small bhajis, they wouldn’t harm.” If I put my foot down and say no to cold drink, someone would ‘request’ me to have a sip. “ Arre it’s not ch
Read more