Busy or Becoming?
“Busyness” today has a negative connotation and often rightly so. Too much is asked of us across life and work. We get sucked into busyness as a status symbol. The VUCA world is overwhelming.
And yet we can often be made to feel wrong if we’re busy. I know my life is often full because of what I choose to do, as a friend positively reflected to me this morning. He didn’t make me feel bad about it, but society often does.
So, I appreciated this perspective and reframe from actress Juliet Binoche in a NY Times interview last year:
I asked her if she always liked to be this busy.
“I wouldn’t call myself busy,” [Juliet Binoche] objected. “More creative than busy.”
“What’s the difference for you?” I asked.
Busyness, she explained, is like “trying to fill up empty space,” whereas being creative “pushes you up into a space where you feel alive and present and discovering and revealing yourself.”
Net, busyness doesn’t have to = bad. But more so, busyness is likely not the right word for the experience Binoche described. I prefer using the term “full”—a full life and schedule. And as Binoche suggests, perhaps when we’re leading a full life, we’re in creative flow and stepping into our becoming (“discovering and revealing yourself”). So:
What if “busyness” for you is living a full, creative, wholehearted life?
What if creativity and fullness in life is about feeling alive, exploring one’s curiosities, and learning more about and becoming oneself?
Now you may say, “Well, I’m not creative, Kathy. This doesn’t apply to me.” Yet I’d encourage you to try this on. Many speak of the belief that we can all be creative. I for too much of my life believed I wasn’t creative, but I now think I’m a creative creating art through left-brain thinking. And I realize that where I want to put more of my attention now is into my creative work. Exploring my creativity is part of my journey of being alive and discovering more about myself. And when I worry too much about the direct purpose of my creative work it can zap the joy out of it.
Thinking about creativity broadly can also help us step outside of constant doing, as discussed in this podcast episode. Creativity can provide a way of thinking about projects in different stages. There is value in thinking (creativity) just as much as there is value in doing. And thinking and doing require different parts of our brain. It is beneficial to allow space for moments of thinking and creativity.
What’s next?
If you are feeling busy for busy sake, consider exploring what’s driving the busyness. What if you were to start from a clean slate and refill the empty space with what would energize you rather than drain you? What would make you feel alive? What would a creative, wholehearted life look like? What would support your growth in becoming and discovering and revealing yourself?
If you are leading a full life and are in creative flow, give yourself permission for that to be okay if that’s what you want and you’re enjoying it.
And perhaps take it up a notch—think about carving out a little space for some creative work purely to satisfy a curiosity or consider taking a Creative Work Sabbatical.
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