The Busyness of Life
While I did not recognize the lesson in the moment, I will be forever grateful to a street performer my husband and I saw during a vacation many years ago. The performer started spinning a single plate on a stick and then over the course of the next few minutes he added new plates one by one – each one spinning on its own stick until he had 15 or more plates all spinning at the same time. At that point, he had to race from one end of the line to the opposite end tapping each plate as he ran by just enough to keep it in motion. As soon as he got to one end of the line and was out of breath, the plates at the other end would have slowed down to the point they were about to crash. He would react with lightning speed and run back tapping each plate as he ran by in an attempt to keep the plates moving and avoid them crashing to the ground.
I returned home from that vacation and resumed juggling projects, commitments and responsibilities in the various areas of my life. As I tried desperately to keep my head above water, I thought about the plate spinner. I realized that I was living my life in a similar way - running from one “plate” to the next trying to keep everything from crashing around me and exhausting myself in the process.
In that moment of clarity, I recognized that I was spending my time and energy reacting to situations and circumstances in my life. I then realized that I had created my reality by always saying yes to other people and by offering to help even when people were not asking for my help. In that moment I accepted the reality that I was a people pleaser. Over time I dug further and discovered that my actions were based on my belief that I had to “please” others by always saying yes in order for people to like me.
While being a people pleaser is not the worst fate in the world, it is exhausting and limiting. Thankfully by learning to replace my belief that I need to please everyone everywhere with a more healthy belief about how I interact with others I was able to create a new reality – one where my relationships are not based on my ability to please other people.
The frenetic pace of modern society, driven by technology that enables us to be connected around the clock can also contribute to a lot of activity with little purposeful action.
“Never confuse motion with action.”
- Benjamin Franklin
Each day consists of 1,440 minutes. If you are not aware and purposeful, you can spend your entire day being highly active while accomplishing very little. Do you spend your 1,440 on the busyness of life or are you using your 1,440 to focus on the business of your life – creating the life you want to experience?
It’s your life so, as always, the choice is yours.
- Lisa Johnson