"I am so busy! My life is so hectic!"--

"People use busyness as a status symbol"---random quote off the internet

In one of our seminars at the NSM (National Sales Meeting) One of the Madow brothers recounted a scene he overheard at the supermarket.   

Mom #1  "Oh my gosh I am so busy, after this I have to take my child to the dentist, then I have to meet with my other childs' teacher, and then take the first child soccer practice...etc. etc. etc.

Mom #2 "No kidding, I woke up this morning at 5:00 to get in a workout, then I have to get all three of my kids up in the morning, feed them, make lunches, get them to school, then I work all day, take the kids to soccer practice, eat our dinner, go to bible study, and you know my husband just comes home and crashes, I do everything for the kids....sigh I am so busy my life is so hectic"

Dave Madow felt like grabbing them and saying, "If your so busy, then how do you guys have so much time to talk about it, It's almost like you are having a competition to see who is busier."

Over the years I have heard strangers, friends and yes some family members talking about their busy lives.   And after a while I came to this conclusion.....in general people in America use business to justify their self worth.  And then I came to another conclusion....in general people think they are much busier then they actually are.  If you don't believe me try doing this exercise...How much time each week do you spend watching TV or on the internet?  If you are really honest with yourself you spend more time then you think.  I'll cite one classic example at a "Bible Study" Tasha and I went to about 3 years ago......after the time when everyone tells everyone else how sick their friends and family members are(and then everyone says, "And we pray for so and so's cousin lord, who is sick with rickets, lord you are the great physician father, sigh ......), there is usually a bit of small talk, and everyone talked about what TV shows they watch, and everyone was talking about "My name is Earl" (remember this was 3 years ago) and other shows......Well maybe it was just me but I seemed to remember how 30 minutes earlier I commented on that we were listening to music off of DirecTv (which I have had for almost 15 years am an expert on and is the best TV provider in the United States)  This sparked a busyness competition narrative after the owner of the house mentioned they don't have very much time for TV because they are a "busy family".

And here is something else I have noticed...people also use busyness as an excuse to get out of something they don't want to do....classic example, I was trying to sell a friend of mine some Dodger tickets and he e-mailed me back and said he was too busy...I felt like saying, yah but you make time for things that are priorities in your life, and for him, driving to Dodger stadium 10 times just wasn't something he wanted to do and that is fine (:  He just didn't want to hurt my feelings.  

I remember something my Dad said to me a long time ago (he has never once used this excuse, or talked about how busy he is, yet his accomplishments speak for themselves) 

 He said, "Gar people will tell you they don't have time, but you can always make time"

So to sum up:

1.  in general people talk about how busy they are to justify their existence to other people

2. People in general are rarely as busy as they think they are.

3.  People use busyness as an excuse to get out of things they don't want to do.