Too busy
17/09/16 05:09
Lets start today with a bit of the history of philosophy. Don’t worry, it’s just a LITTLE bit: In Apology, Plato reports of the trial of Socrates, in which he was given the choice of exile or death. Plato quotes Socrates as responding by choosing death with these words: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” From our perspective all of these centuries later it is probably impossible to know for sure what Socrates actually said and which words Plato attributed to Socrates. For the purposes of today’s blog, it probably doesn’t matter who first said those words. The dictum has become a part of our contemporary understanding and is often quoted and occasionally misquoted.
If it is the truth, however, I don’t think that many are achieving much examining of their lives. We are simply too busy.
I know I can easily fall into a sense of busyness. Because they know of my love of paddling, people frequently ask me about it: “Have you been doing any paddling lately?” The truth is that I have not. I haven’t gotten out a boat since they were put away at the end of our vacation. Tomorrow is my third Sunday back and I haven’t gone out once. It seems that I am too busy. And I have a “to do” list that keeps getting longer and longer. I could name all of the tasks I’ve set ahead of myself, but frankly it is probably boring.
It is not just me. I frequently ask the members of our congregation how things are going, how their families are. The most common answer I hear is something like, “We’re just so busy. I’m so busy. There is so much going on.” The people in my congregation are tired, exacerbated and overwhelmed with the pace of their schedules.
Duke University professor Omid Safi recently wrote about visiting with one of his neighbors and asking if their daughter and his daughter could get together to play. The mother reached for her cell phone and opened up the calendar application. She scrolled . . . and scrolled . . . and scrolled . . . and finally said, “She has a 45-minute opening two and a half weeks from now. The rest of the time its gymnastics, piano and voice lessons. She’s just . . . so busy.” His report of the interchange immediately reminded me of the struggles we have been having planning events for our youth group and children programs at the church. Even when we establish regular meeting times, attendance is very spotty. There isn’t much room in the schedules of the children and youth for church activities. After a career of participating in weekly youth group meetings, I have to admit that it might not be possible to get that kind of commitment from today’s youth.
It is a big change for me because I grew up in a world where children got muddy, dirty, messy and made up our own games. I grew up in a world where we sometimes complained of being bored because our small town didn’t have many organized activities for children. I’m having trouble adjusting to a world in which parents consistently overschedule their children, making them as stressed and busy as the parents.
The result, I fear, is that we are raising a generation of children who have their priorities skewed. They find it normal to have very little time for leisure, very little time for reflection and very little time for community.
Which is why I began with the Socratic quote. It is time to examine our way of living before living becomes meaningless. If time were taken for examination, we would once again discover a truth that the ancients knew: People who do not allow enough time for leisure are not free. This is serious business. Becoming a slave to one’s schedule is just the beginning. Our entire way of life is based on people making time for leisure, reflection and community.
It is no mistake that the ten commandments, basic advise on living as free people, devote the most words to the commandment about Sabbath. People who think they are too busy to take a day off are placing themselves above God, not a good practice if you would be a free people.
Our system of democracy assumes that people will take time to reflect and make choices that are not only in their own best interests, but in the best interests of the entire community. The wisdom of the whole assumes that individuals will consider the value of community. Thoughtless voting without allowing any time for contemplation yields disastrous results. Abdicating one’s responsibility to the crafters of television advertising is neither responsible nor wise for the long-term health of a democracy. Democracy assumes that people will take time to examine and choose wisely.
If we were to examine, we would discover that we’ve become so busy in part because we have become enslaved to our technology. Consider that mother, scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. There probably could have been five more minutes for her child just in that single interchange. The mother spends so much time keeping the schedule in her phone updated that she doesn’t have time for her child.
I frequently find myself caught in a similar bind. I struggle daily with an avalanche of email. I was an early adopter of computer-aided communication. I like the idea of being able to keep in touch. But these days I am constantly buried under hundreds and hundreds of emails and I have no idea how to get out from under the burden. My inbox is filled with personal emails, business emails, hybrid emails. And people expect a response. A few years ago, I weathered a scathing verbal attack because I decided not to respond to work emails while on vacation. Even though an associate was responding to those emails, the lack of a personal response from me was seen as a dereliction of duty by a member of the congregation. These days I plan email response time into every vacation. The tool that was designed to save time is consuming time.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
I am teaching myself and, hopefully the people I serve, the importance of face-to-face connections. Put your hand on my arm, look me in the eye, and connect with me for one second. I’ll do the same for you.
And if you don’t get an instant response from the email you sent me, consider it a gift of leisure in a world that is far too busy. Use the time to examine your busy life. Waiting can be a blessing.
If it is the truth, however, I don’t think that many are achieving much examining of their lives. We are simply too busy.
I know I can easily fall into a sense of busyness. Because they know of my love of paddling, people frequently ask me about it: “Have you been doing any paddling lately?” The truth is that I have not. I haven’t gotten out a boat since they were put away at the end of our vacation. Tomorrow is my third Sunday back and I haven’t gone out once. It seems that I am too busy. And I have a “to do” list that keeps getting longer and longer. I could name all of the tasks I’ve set ahead of myself, but frankly it is probably boring.
It is not just me. I frequently ask the members of our congregation how things are going, how their families are. The most common answer I hear is something like, “We’re just so busy. I’m so busy. There is so much going on.” The people in my congregation are tired, exacerbated and overwhelmed with the pace of their schedules.
Duke University professor Omid Safi recently wrote about visiting with one of his neighbors and asking if their daughter and his daughter could get together to play. The mother reached for her cell phone and opened up the calendar application. She scrolled . . . and scrolled . . . and scrolled . . . and finally said, “She has a 45-minute opening two and a half weeks from now. The rest of the time its gymnastics, piano and voice lessons. She’s just . . . so busy.” His report of the interchange immediately reminded me of the struggles we have been having planning events for our youth group and children programs at the church. Even when we establish regular meeting times, attendance is very spotty. There isn’t much room in the schedules of the children and youth for church activities. After a career of participating in weekly youth group meetings, I have to admit that it might not be possible to get that kind of commitment from today’s youth.
It is a big change for me because I grew up in a world where children got muddy, dirty, messy and made up our own games. I grew up in a world where we sometimes complained of being bored because our small town didn’t have many organized activities for children. I’m having trouble adjusting to a world in which parents consistently overschedule their children, making them as stressed and busy as the parents.
The result, I fear, is that we are raising a generation of children who have their priorities skewed. They find it normal to have very little time for leisure, very little time for reflection and very little time for community.
Which is why I began with the Socratic quote. It is time to examine our way of living before living becomes meaningless. If time were taken for examination, we would once again discover a truth that the ancients knew: People who do not allow enough time for leisure are not free. This is serious business. Becoming a slave to one’s schedule is just the beginning. Our entire way of life is based on people making time for leisure, reflection and community.
It is no mistake that the ten commandments, basic advise on living as free people, devote the most words to the commandment about Sabbath. People who think they are too busy to take a day off are placing themselves above God, not a good practice if you would be a free people.
Our system of democracy assumes that people will take time to reflect and make choices that are not only in their own best interests, but in the best interests of the entire community. The wisdom of the whole assumes that individuals will consider the value of community. Thoughtless voting without allowing any time for contemplation yields disastrous results. Abdicating one’s responsibility to the crafters of television advertising is neither responsible nor wise for the long-term health of a democracy. Democracy assumes that people will take time to examine and choose wisely.
If we were to examine, we would discover that we’ve become so busy in part because we have become enslaved to our technology. Consider that mother, scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. There probably could have been five more minutes for her child just in that single interchange. The mother spends so much time keeping the schedule in her phone updated that she doesn’t have time for her child.
I frequently find myself caught in a similar bind. I struggle daily with an avalanche of email. I was an early adopter of computer-aided communication. I like the idea of being able to keep in touch. But these days I am constantly buried under hundreds and hundreds of emails and I have no idea how to get out from under the burden. My inbox is filled with personal emails, business emails, hybrid emails. And people expect a response. A few years ago, I weathered a scathing verbal attack because I decided not to respond to work emails while on vacation. Even though an associate was responding to those emails, the lack of a personal response from me was seen as a dereliction of duty by a member of the congregation. These days I plan email response time into every vacation. The tool that was designed to save time is consuming time.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
I am teaching myself and, hopefully the people I serve, the importance of face-to-face connections. Put your hand on my arm, look me in the eye, and connect with me for one second. I’ll do the same for you.
And if you don’t get an instant response from the email you sent me, consider it a gift of leisure in a world that is far too busy. Use the time to examine your busy life. Waiting can be a blessing.