Too Busy to Be Alive

We've become collectors of commitments and hoarders of deadlines.

"Sorry, I'm slammed this week." "I don't have a minute to breathe." "You wouldn't believe how busy I am."

I catch myself saying these things. I've been there – scheduling my life down to 30-minute increments, feeling that brief flutter of anxiety when someone asks for my time before, and inevitably, saying yes.

Somewhere along the way, the world tricked us into thinking that motion was meaning. Our culture equates activity with achievement and society convinced us that to be busy was to be important.

The reality is that life demands so much from us. School pickups, deadlines, aging parents, home repairs, endless administrative tasks.

But in the necessary chaos, we sometimes forget: being busy is not the same as being alive.

Isn’t being alive that body-shaking laughter that leaves you gasping for air? Isn’t it that “ah-HA!” lightbulb moment when you finally figure out what you’ve been puzzling? Isn’t it that exquisite stomach-turning discomfort of trying something new? Or the wonder in your kid’s eyes as they watch a cloud change from doggie to dragon?

We mistake doing for being. We confuse our resume for our humanity. We respond to every notification, accept every invitation, pursue every opportunity. Because the alternative feels like falling behind.

Falling behind … what, exactly?

The most profound moments of life - moments of connection, insight, wonder - rarely arrive on demand. They aren't scheduled on a packed calendar. They happen in the spaces between. In the space between all the doing. In the stillness. In the pause. 

I'm working on this. The days when I feel most aligned aren't necessarily the ones where I checked everything off my list. They're the days I allowed myself to be present – like no shit, really present – even if just for a few moments.

The measure of a life well-lived won't be found on a list of the meetings you went to. It will be found in all those moments you allowed yourself to be touched by the world without rushing to the next thing. The times you permitted yourself to really feel the joy, the fear, the uncertainty, the love.

Maybe the greatest productivity hack isn’t cramming more doing into less time. Maybe it’s finding those moment of presence in your beautiful, chaotic life.