by Grant Nelson
I touched on how we use time in a recent column. I feel it’s an important topic and deserves more attention. Here comes the attention.
I feel like a hypocrite if I don’t first state that I am a busy person. I don’t often stop and smell the roses. We learn from mistakes and I have made them which has helped me to form my opinions.
Too many of us are addicted to busyness. Like a chain smoker, we light the next project from the heat left over from our current project. I think the addiction is to accomplishment, it’s a malady that plays well into what the world wants from us. It is a useful tool however it is not a good master.
Discipline in the use of time is more like dieting than it is an addiction. An addiction is loss of control in the use of a substance and the end goal is to never use the substance again. Dieting means you have to control the use of a substance which is food. You can’t shut it off completely so you and food have to create a respectful relationship. It’s that way with being busy, you need to be busy sometimes however if accomplishment is all you desire, you become a slave or an addict. You can’t just walk away from being busy forever, you have to master it.
I think that to prevent addiction to being industrious you have to change your values. Our time on earth is limited and how we spend it is an extremely important decision. If we only value money or status, we will spend time working towards those goals. If we value deep meaningful relationships, we will work towards that goal. Money and status are fleeting goals and demand a constant increase to be satisfying. Meaningful relationships satisfy even with the thinnest slice.
When we use time to strengthen relationships, we are rewarded many times over. Strong relationships bring a satisfying emotion that we don’t have to chase. Contrast this with the brief surge we experience from accomplishment. The successful completion of a project is followed by loneliness unless we have someone with whom to share it. If there is no one there to experience our joy with us then we must go seek yet more accomplishment to feel good again.
Think about a time when you spent time with someone you love. Now think about a great personal accomplishment. Which one fills you with sustainable warmth and which one is like a shooting star. I recently spent an evening at a basketball game with friends and family. When I think about it, I feel warm, I have had several small accomplishments since this time. When I think of those accomplishments, they are a brief explosion of light and then nothing. I think accomplishment should have a beginning and an end. That should leave time for life.
