Is Busy a Disease?

What I am learning from my journey towards simplicity...

There is an article floating around Facebook that says that we have the disease of being too busy. It’s a good article, and yes, many of us do feel “too busy”, but I do think it’s a deeper issue than too busy.

First- the illusion, that people in the past had more free time. 

What past are we talking about? 

In the pre-industrial world, (as it is now in many third world countries,) the struggle for food and shelter involved back breaking labour, water hauling, animal tending and a standard of living that would look like primitive camping to us. After a day of this, people fell into bed when the sun went down, and got up the next day, and the next, and the next and did it all again. Exhausting, repetitive- slaves to eking out an existence. They had one change of clothes, maybe two if they were lucky. Free time? 

No...but yes!  When you weren’t exhausted, there was face time, real face to face time, relational time. So actually, less free time, but without the temptations we face today, it was perhaps more free time. 

Now fast forward a 
few hundred years. 
We expect clean water, gourmet food, beautiful shelter and we have got them. We expect to not have to work physically hard if we don’t want to, and we have got that. We actually have more leisure time than any generation before us.

The problem is... we have more complex temptations that the pre-industrialized world did not face. We create business through identity needs, piling up involvements as achievements. We turn to electronic entertainment to distract and sooth us. We have bigger homes to clean, furnish and show off, more than one car to pay for, and closets of clothes to wash, iron and care for. X4, or X5, or X6 if you have children. Exhausting, yes.  Busy yes. Distracting yes. Draining most certainly. 

Yet it doesn’t have to be this way...

How do I know this? I took my time back. I stopped watching TV! 
Permanently. No reality shows, no cable bill... more free time. I limit my computer time ...more free time. I don’t play online games...more free time. We sold our huge home, which makes for less bills, less cleaning washing and ironing. ... more free time. Purged my closet... more free time... Unsubscribed and blocked every non essential email... more free time.

AND...

This allows me to give my time to the things that have the most meaning for me. Face to face things, relational things, adventure things, Kingdom things.

You see, finding free time its not about escaping hard work. Hard work is meaningful when it’s building something you love. In fact, am one of the hardest workers I know. It’s about breaking up with the time suckers you have given yourself to. Letting go of the empty promises of materialism to meet identity needs, and getting rid of the clutter that you have to clean, polish and move from place to place. It’s about managing your personal freedom in ways that reflect your core values. 

I recently read a book about a post apocalypse America… there was no war, terrorists simply fried the electronics. People had to return to a 1800’s lifestyle of planting crops, hauling water, tending animals, and going to bed when the sun went down.  No appliances, electronics, closets of clothes, and no malls selling stuff. And guess what? They were happier… they had more relational time. 

The moral of the story… 
Do you want more free time? Want better relationships? Pull the plug, and manage your personal freedom. Purge, downsize, get rid of “stuff". Unsubscribe from emails, games and cable TV. Turn off Netflix, own less, and give more.  

You will be happier!

I've done it, and it’s true!