Being Busy: A Spiritual Issue

I am convinced when yous operate on a college campus, everyone is busy.  Talk to faculty in addition to they are rattling busy, every bit they volition hold upwardly quick to enjoin yous or complain.  Talk to students in addition to i hears the same lament.  “I’m so busy,” they profess.  We tin fifty-fifty inquire the staff in addition to they, too, are busy beyond belief.  And certainly, I receive got those periods where I also whine well-nigh beingness besides busy.
   
I know it is non only an effect inwards the academy.  I know or so folks inwards delineate of piece of occupation organisation who are quick to enjoin yous how incredibly busy they are.  I suspect if nosotros were to measurement into a hospital, the nurses, aides, doctors in addition to others would echo the busy refrain.  Perhaps the patients are non busy, but everyone else is.  I fifty-fifty receive got to laugh.  So many monks I know would sigh well-nigh how busy the monastery has become.  Even though monastic traditions, similar the contemplatives, receive got oft incorporated besides much to do that they experience similar their monastic calling has been compromised.
   
I wonder if this is a malady that only affects the form of people I know in addition to alongside whom I hang out?  I know at that spot are places similar nursing homes where the residents cannot mayhap hold upwardly besides busy.  I am sure the caretakers for those residents are busy---perhaps besides busy.  It makes me wonder if busyness is only a given inwards people’s lives unless they are rattling young, rattling one-time or sick?
   
I also wonder if busyness is not, inwards part, a spiritual issue?  My starting fourth dimension supposition is affirmative: busyness is, inwards part, a spiritual issue.  And I don’t yell back busyness has to hold upwardly a given.  I yell back at that spot is choice---theoretically anyway.  But I also recognize busyness tin hold upwardly so chronic inwards a soul or a group, that it no longer seems to hold upwardly a choice.  Busyness tin popular off so much a purpose of the culture---in my college, for example---that everyone inwards that civilisation has to hold upwardly busy or they actually are non “productive” or “carrying their ain weight.” 
   
Being busy is fairly slow to understand.  Busyness only applies to folks who are actively engaged inwards something.  If yous are doing nothing, yous are non busy.  We tin hold upwardly busy alongside work, alongside people or alongside things.  Often nosotros are busy alongside a combination of these three: work, people in addition to things.  Clearly none of the iii is inherently bad.  Work is good; people are good; in addition to things tin hold upwardly good.  It is a thing of proportion.
   
Perhaps that is the key.  When nosotros are busy---or “too busy,” every bit nosotros mightiness lament---the proportionality is out of whack.  Work is good.  But operate piles upwardly in addition to begins to force us to the limit.  Being busy agency at that spot is no terminate inwards sight; at that spot is no break.  Being busy feels similar nosotros tin hardly breathe.  We may hold upwardly actually practiced at operate and, then, to a greater extent than tin hold upwardly added.  Being busy commonly agency nosotros are feeling similar nosotros are at the limits.
   
The same is truthful for people in addition to things.  We tin hold upwardly so busy alongside people that at that spot is no longer whatever infinite for ourselves.  Or nosotros tin hold upwardly so busy alongside things, at that spot is no allow up.  Being busy commonly agency nosotros tin barely manage---we deal to hang on.  We experience similar nosotros are beingness twirled past times life in addition to busyness speeds upwardly so much, it feels similar nosotros volition come upwardly apart.
   
While I receive got non used spiritual linguistic communication much, I yell back busyness is a spiritual issue.  Let’s reverberate a fleck on this.  Being busy commonly agency nosotros are feeling off center.  We may experience out of balance.  I similar the linguistic communication of “center,” because that is a spiritual give-and-take for me.  Hence, if I am feeling off center, in addition to so I clearly am non “centered.”  In my understanding, spirituality is designed to middle us inwards life.
   
Spirituality centers us past times connecting us to God---to the Holy One or Spirit of Life.  To hold upwardly connected alongside the Holy One gives me a risk to know myself and, therefore, to hold upwardly my truthful self.  When I am besides busy, I am pulled out of myself.  I am “at my wits’ end” or “pushed to the limits.”  There is no longer the solidity or stability that comes alongside beingness centered.
   
Being busy---too busy---threatens to plough me into someone I am not.  Busy people tin popular off desperate people---on the treadmill alongside someone else’s paw on the speed button!  I may hold upwardly inwards control, but it is perilous.  Often the only way I teach off is to hold upwardly thrown off (get sick?).
   
If busyness is a spiritual issue, in addition to so nosotros tin address it inwards a spiritual fashion.  Spirituality naturally seeks to address busyness past times bringing balance, or so moderation in addition to or so mutual sense.  They are relatively simple, but seldom easy.  Spirituality must reassert that nosotros receive got a choice.
   
When I am besides busy, I know I involve or so fourth dimension alone.  I involve or so prayer or meditation to reconnect.  I know I involve or so others---some community---to assist me measurement dorsum from the limits, which receive got overextended me.  Busyness exhausts me; I involve the infinite in addition to grace to popular off dorsum to my center---that vitalizing center.
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