On Being Busy

Once again, I'm starting this post from the cookie crumb covered couch of Main Street Bagels. I'm seriously considering breaking my strict seating tradition and abandoning my familiar cushions for the less sweat inducing surface of a wooden chair. The air-conditioned coffee shop struggles mightily to cool itself, but can't hope to compete with the sweltering heat raging outside. I don't care to imagine what the employees must be suffering in the kitchen, as the steam from opening ovens full of cookies and muffins mingles with the heat of a Grand Junction summer to create an unintentional sauna.

The feeling of overall stickiness is nigh impossible to escape this time of year. The sun is harsh and the heat is fierce. Girls walk by in sleeveless, yellow summer dresses, relishing the feeling of wind and fabric between their legs. Business men are seen sporting unbecoming shorts, white, skinny calves and ankles glaring back at the intense sun. A middle-aged man has fallen asleep with his half-eaten bagel sandwich under one of the umbrellas outside. At least, I sincerely hope he's asleep. If he's fainted from the invasive, claustrophobic heat, I wouldn't be even a little surprised. This is the time of year in Western Colorado for flip-flops and shorts and sunglasses. This is the time to worry about dehydration and heat stroke. This is the time of early morning and late night hikes, as being outside at any other time of the day is terribly unpleasant. The only creatures that seem to relish these oppressive condition are the flies, and the whole lot of them are gleefully flitting about my sweaty shins as I write. It's been a couple of years since I last tap danced, but these opportunistic insects are providing excellent motivation for me to resume my dancing habits. If I keep my legs immobile for a full five seconds, I'm swarmed.

Shuffle, drawback, shuffle, falap ball change.

As I mentioned last week and directly alluded to in my title, I've become increasingly busy, as of late.

Sundays: Work at Hands Up Homes for Youth for 12 hours.
Mondays: Teach yoga for 75 minutes at Yoga West and work at Hands Up Homes for Youth for 8 hours.
Tuesdays: Teach yoga for 75 minutes at Yoga West and work at Hands Up Homes for Youth for 8 hours.
Wednesdays: Work at Hands Up Homes for Youth for 10 hours.
Thursdays: Teach yoga for an hour and prepare for our weekly dinner party
Fridays: Garden for 6 hours and teach yoga for two hours.
Saturdays: Teach yoga for 2 1/2 hours and garden for 1 hour.

A schedule like this gives me immense satisfaction when I write it down in my planner, but has the undesirable side-effect of turning me into a self-centered and pretentious prick in real life. I'm impatient and belittling and my reactions to the little things not going according to plan tend to be rather explosive. After a few hours of soul searching and a couple of unwarranted explosions at my befuddled boyfriend, I've discovered a few of the reasons why being busy might contribute to my overall nastiness.

Busyness, in and of itself, can be a marvelous aspect of life. I think humans are designed to desire to lead productive lives. I've been reading a book on homelessness lately (research for my next play), and I was intrigued to learn that the majority of homeless people will take work over welfare even if the welfare pays more than the work, the work disqualifies them for welfare and medical assistance, and they're still stuck living in shelters even though they work 40+ hours a week. Why do they do this?

"It's better than walking the streets."

People want to contribute. They want to find places in which they fit. They want to feel valuable and accomplished. Having a full schedule of working engagements fulfills our innate desire to be needed. We like to wake up in the morning and think, "I'm needed at nine o'clock. If I don't show up, people with notice. People will miss me."  A passage from Tell Them Who I Am: The Lives of Homeless Women that I found particularly poignant, stated, "Theirs is certainly not a struggle for the economic rewards of the work, nor even for the social or psychological rewards. Their needs are pre-social, elemental. They know they are in deep trouble, in danger of losing their sanity and their humanity, and they are struggling to hold on. It is as if the Louises and Dorothys (characters in the book) believe with Freud that "work is man's principal tie to reality," and they feel that tie slipping away.

Busyness, with the wrong attitude, can be a terribly destructive, dehumanizing aspect of life. The incorrect attitude can imbue you with an unhealthy dose of false superiority. You start viewing your time as even more precious than usual, and certainly more precious than the time of someone not nearly as busy as you. This leads to dehumanization of others and justification for a veritable slew of behaviors you deem inappropriate for less busy people, but you now allow yourself because --

I'm just so busy.

Behaviors include:

Not returning calls or emails.

Sorry I didn't return your call. I know it was important, but I was just too busy. 

Perpetually postponing showering.

I'm too busy this afternoon. *smell check* Yup, I can wait until tomorrow. 

 Speeding and reckless driving.

If only they knew how busy I am... they'd understand. JESUS! The light is green already! Hurry the f*ck up! Some of us have places to go. 
  
Leaving messes for others to clean up.

He's not that busy. He can just take care of it with his stuff. 
 
Losing your shit when forced to wait an extra two minutes.

Don't you know that I have things to do?

All of these behaviors are reprehensible in and of themselves, but add the superiority complex, and you have a first-rate asshole on your hands. This complex makes it easily justifiable to turn yourself into an antagonistic jerk, but makes it an atrocity against humanity (you) when someone else forgets to return your phone call.

Do they really think it's okay to force me to wait like this? Don't they know that I have plans to make? I can't just put my life on hold as I patiently wait for them to pick up the phone and get back to me.

Now, before this post results in me losing all of my wonderful friends, let me note that I haven't quite escalated to this impressive level of jerk. I just feel like that's the unhappy direction in which I'm heading, and am determined to nip this complex in the bud. I'm not prepared to quit any of my jobs yet, but I am prepared to be a bit more humble and quadruple my efforts on being aware and present. I am going to do my absolute best to never use my busyness to excuse my bad behavior. I am going to do my absolute best to treat the time of other people as an entity just as valuable as my own, regardless of how they use it. That's not my business.

All in all, I've concluded that I'm a much nicer person when I'm not busy, but I'm a much more productive and fulfilled person when I am. Hence, I'm going to treat myself like I do when I'm not busy and still maintain the schedule of a busy person. I'm hoping for a win/win situation, but we'll see how it all turns out.