Why Always Being Busy Isn’t Necessarily A Good Thing

In a world that preaches hard work and endless hours typing away on our laptops, being busy rarely ever equates to being productive. “Less is more” is perhaps the greatest unanswered paradox of our time. But the worst part is, we often feel guilty for not working our butt off and never allowing ourselves a chance to breathe and appreciate our lives because we always feel the need to work hard.

But when we don’t give ourselves time to appreciate and be proud of all that we’ve accomplished, we miss out on life itself because we were too busy to see the beauty in it all. We spend our days chasing a better future, only to realize later on that the way we are feeling right now is exactly how we’ll feel when that future does finally arrive.

Instead, let’s be mindful instead of inherently always busy. Let’s be intentional in what we choose to direct our attention and focus towards, realizing fully that the process of the journey and being present while it all unfolds is the true beauty of it all. This moment is all we have. It’s all we’ll ever experience. But in realizing this, we can also realize that we’ve been asleep to the true essence of life for so long. Life is right in front of us and all we have to do is give ourselves the space and time to see it clearly, knowing it’s been here the entire time.

If we’re always busy, we are never truly living. Rather, we are working towards a future that we created in the confines of our minds that has an end date. But the truth is, the journey of life has no end date or place to get to. Being constantly busy just means that we aren’t digging deep enough into who we are to see how we are truly living, but more importantly, how we want to truly live.

Hard work isn’t everything. Consistent, present, and fully engaged work on the right things while allowing yourself time and space to breathe, however, is. I became so tired of always living for a future that I forgot what it means to live in the “now.”

Are you working towards happiness in a future that you think will make you happy without realizing you are already here? Is the way that you’re living now the same way that you want to be living in your happy future? Because I want you to know that the future that you’re putting on a pedestal is here, right now. You can begin living it today if you so choose to.

You do not have to wait for happiness to find you at a later date. You can start living your life now, without crowding your life with being as busy or as subjectively productive as possible, in order to feel like you are on your way to getting there. Because being busy doesn’t always mean that you are being happy. Rather, it means that you are afraid to let go of working towards a future that you know deep down cannot be what it lives up to in your mind.

Today is all that we have. Today is the only moment we can be in. So work hard towards what matters most, but take extra special care in giving yourself time to take in the essence and vibrance of everything that’s around you, or else one day, you may wake up and realize that you missed the ride.