Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Good Letters

Home
Catholic
Taming the Busy Trap

Taming the Busy Trap

Last updated on: August 14, 2015 at 1:00 am by Guest Contributor

Taming the Busy Trap 2015-08-13T13:01:23-07:00 Guest Contributor

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

By Allison Backhous Troy

I’m emerging from one of the busiest seasons of my life.

My wedding and a move from Michigan to Wyoming have filled my summer with enough checklists and tasks to keep me running around until one in the morning, until I finally put myself to bed, the set of tomorrow’s tasks stuttering in my ear while I try to sleep.

I’ve been asked numerous times how I’ve held up under the stress. How I deal with feeling overwhelmed and exhausted and stretched too thin.

And, to be honest, I’ve had to say, “Well, it doesn’t feel too bad, actually. I’m doing fine.”

I have felt fine. I’ve been sleeping regularly and haven’t resorted to a diet of coffee and junk food. Maybe my seeming lack of stress is due to the fact that I got to spread these tasks over my thirteen-month engagement.

Maybe I’ve been channeling some inner peace that makes this series of beginnings and ends more tolerable, serene, easy to handle.

Or, perhaps I’m not as stressed as people think I should be because, in the regular routine of my life, planning this life transition has felt like a vacation. Like a pause in the midst of a usually numbing busyness, one that turns every hour into a blank slate, waiting for tasks to fill it.

Tim Kreider recently wrote about the American pandemic of the busy trap, the current pace that each of us sprints at, in one way or another.

It’s an easy accusation to make if you are in some spot of leisure, as Kreider is, but his argument is pointed at those of us who make ourselves busy out of a disruption in our inner life, not out of actual necessity.

“[People] are busy because of their own ambition or drive or anxiety,” Kreider writes, “because they’re addicted to busyness and dread what they might have to face in its absence.”

The busyness that Kreider describes seems like a nasty cousin of acedia. It pushes us to over-schedule, to put off face-to-face meetings with others, to assume that getting things done quickly means bearing fruit.

It’s production and consumerism, and it’s a sickness of my soul that has haunted me since I was a girl, trying to busy my life so that the poison of my home life would lose some of its edge.

For me, it’s always been the balancing of tasks: If I could balance both teaching and writing, if I could pour my life into something with a direct output, it would not only quiet my own loneliness, but also buffer me against all my daily failings.

If I could see my time being spent virtuously at some task, it would excuse me for any other inattention, any involuntary hurt I caused someone else.

In other words, if I could justify my frenzied actions, if I saw them doing good in some way, meaning by doing good, I would be forgiven for doing any wrong. It would mean that, no matter how much I failed to love, I would still be worthy of love myself.

The issue of busyness is layered with questions of class, race, and economic possibility. Exhaustion, according to Kreider, is what strikes poorer people, not complaints about too many emails to answer.

Kreider’s assertion is a spiritual one, albeit indirectly. It looks at the consequences of busyness in terms of its effects on our relationships, our emotional terrain, and our ease in the world.

And it forces us—forces me—to tell the truth about what purpose our tasks serve, and what broken ends we seek in them.

If busyness is an addiction, then it feeds some desire that has been twisted and bent by wrongdoing. And, like anything else, that desire needs rehabilitation, a house of healing to set it aright.

My husband’s parents live in eastern Michigan. Their freezers are full of homegrown spinach and wild turkey, and their backyard is hedged with forest. They spend evenings playing cards and watching old movies, their country home free of both Internet and cell phones.

We spent a weekend with Jeremy’s parents a few weeks before the wedding, and it was rejuvenating in the way we both needed. We read books; I crocheted; and we simply sat with one another, our conversations both rich and simple, our meals long and lingering.

On our way home, Jeremy and I both asked each other, “How can we practice that kind of life?”

I’m not proposing that Jeremy’s parents live in an idyllic paradise. Jeremy’s parents choose their connections carefully, and their lives are both busy and demanding because they invest in the people they love, and the countryside that they call home, in ways that cultivate respect and love.

In order to answer the spiritual question of my over-busied life, I need to cultivate love and respect in the ways that help me see myself more simply. Ways that help me see others more clearly. Ways that refashion the purposes my tasks take on, not to guarantee myself love—but to give it to others.

To face love for what it is—free and holy and good—and to practice living in ways that keep us turning to love, over and over and over again.

Originally published in Good Letters on August 9, 2012.

Allison Backous Troy teaches lives and writes in Boston, MA, with her family

The above royalty free image is attributed to Cliff on Flickr.

Culture

Guest Contributor

acedia

Allison Backhous Troy

Previous Post

August 13, 2015

No Better Place to End, Part 2

Next Post

August 17, 2015 The Boy Who Lived Large

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category A. G. Harmon Alissa Wilkinson Allison Backous Art Authors Brad Fruhauff Bradford Winters Bryan Bliss Caroline Langston Chad Thomas Johnston Chris Hoke Christiana N. Peterson Culture D.G. Myers D.L. Mayfield Daniel Bowman Jr. David Griffith Elizabeth Duffy Faith Film Greg Wolfe Guest Contributor Interview Jan Vallone Jeffrey Overstreet Jessica Eddings-Roeser Jessica Mesman Griffith Kelly Foster Lindsey Crittenden Morgan Meis music Natalie Vestin Nick Olson Peggy Rosenthal Personal Reflection Poetry Friday Reflection Relationships Review Richard Chess Richard Cole Sara Zarr Shannon Huffman Polson Sonya Bilocerkowycz Tania Runyan Tony Woodlief Topical Categories Uncategorized Vic Sizemore Writing

Select a Month October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 February 2008

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

True or False: David killed Goliath with a sword.

Select your answer to see how you score.

FALSE TRUE