While Single, way before my engagement, I frequently used the word ‘busy’. However an experience I had in 2016 made me to question how busy I really was.
Hearing or saying the word busy is as common as hearing or saying “good morning”; you don’t have to think hard before using it. Perhaps like the lady I used to be, hardly a day passes without you using it or hearing it from someone else.
Being busy in itself is not bad. It means that we are engaged in one activity or another, eating and sleeping inclusive (these activities are part of a balanced work-life schedule). But if our busy schedules are not well managed, they have the tendency to adversely affect our relationships – of whatever kind, and also hinder potential relationships.
The word busy is easy, and saying “I’m busy” is a reflex response that subtly makes room for procrastination because we rarely question its use. Like I mentioned earlier, an experience I had is what pushed me to ask the question: “how busy are you really?” At that time I was working in a bank and frequently needed the assistance of a senior colleague to complete some tasks. However, this colleague made me ‘dread’ working on any project with her. More often than not, whenever I encountered a challenge and needed her help, she was too busy to assist. She was really good at the job but her response time to my “cry for help” was often frustrating. On more times than I can count, I’d chat her through the internal communicator of the bank to ask her questions relating to a project we were both working on since she understood and had more experience on it than I did, but she wouldn’t respond. This would make me to walk over to her desk and repeat all that I’d already sent to her via chat. Guess what? She’d ask me to go back to my seat, share my screen with her and repeat the scenario that led to my enquiry – the exact reason I was prompting her for a chat before walking over to her desk. Her repetitive reason for not responding to my chats is simply, “I’m busy”. This recurrent incident prompted me to ask myself, “Do I treat others who need my genuine assistance and attention, this way?”
Some dictionary definitions for the word Busy include:
– Actively and attentively engaged in work or a pastime. Doing a great deal; having a lot of things to do in the space of time given.
– Having a great deal to do.
– keeping oneself occupied.
– Having a lot going on; complicated or intricate.
Using the word busy is a very easy way to dismiss someone. If someone asks you to help them look at something and you simply say, “please I’m busy at the moment, I’ll check it out later.” There’s a tendency they’ll leave you believing you’d really check it out later as you said. Sometimes, your later could really be LATER but some other times, it tends to be never, except they send a reminder…
Perhaps as you’re reading this, your subconscious points to you a person – friend, relative, colleague, neighbour, etc., who frequently tells you (s)he’s busy. But don’t be fooled, it’s easier to spot the speck in someone else’s eye without feeling the log in your own eyes. Before you fault someone else, look inwards and examine your use of the word busy like I did and changed my ways in 2016. This New Year, do well to x-ray your busy schedule. Examine your priorities, make room for the needful and take out what isn’t expedient. Don’t let documents lie on your desk longer than they should, map out quality time to spend with your loved ones, create time to take that course that’ll position you for that opportunity you desire… stop using being busy as an easy excuse.
We all are busy with one engagement or another. Nonetheless, when we look more closely, we’ll realize that we are not as busy as we often think. Today, pause and ask yourself: how busy am I really?
Love and Wisdom,
ChinyereDistinguished
