livin' in fast forward
to be the tortoise or the hare?
“We live in a culture full of hares; but the tortoise always wins.”
Rat race, is defined by Dictionary.com as, “any exhausting, unremitting, and usually competitive activity or routine, especially a pressured urban working life spent trying to get ahead with little time left for leisure, contemplation, etc.”
We live in a fast forward world, a world that speeds right past the moments in our days that are often the sweet spots that make life worth living.
Moving at such a fast pace, lost in our busyness, we often miss moments that make our relationships strong, and the moments that can even make or break us, or make or break our relationships with those we love.
Work and personal lives are mashed together and hurried. They often blur together in a whirlwind of activity where we no longer can identify the line between personal and work, family and social, important and busyness.
Technology has contributed greatly to the increased pace of life and that pace seems to be getting faster and more frantic each year.
In a Harvard Business Review article, Beware a Culture of Busyness, by Adam Waltz, he reminds us that, “Once upon a time, leisure was a sign of prestige. Today that idea has been turned on its head, and busyness is the new status symbol. Busy people are considered important and impressive, and employees are rewarded for showing how “hard” they’re working. Such thinking is misguided.”
Waltz later mentions, “Even an epoch-changing pandemic could not shake this aversion to idleness. While managers worried that new work-from-home arrangements brought on by Covid-19 would cause employees to slack off, in fact remote employees in the United States worked longer hours in the early months of the pandemic, even as the economy slowed. Unfortunately, their desire to stay busy may have made them generate unnecessary work and stretch out the time it took to complete existing tasks, exacerbating their burnout.”
Have you tried to plan anything lately with family, friends, church groups, volunteer programs, or even trying to plan a business meeting with more than two people?
It is absolute insanity! Sometimes I need to get a group of four or five people together for a work meeting and it might take days or weeks to find an available open time for all parties.
photo credit Gaining Visuals @gainingvisuals
What has happened to us as a society? Why is this the norm and why is busyness praised and idolized?
Busyness is not a good thing. Now, before I go further, I know scripture tells us in Proverbs 16:27 TLB, “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop; idle lips are his mouthpiece.”
Someone who has no responsibility, no accountability, and nothing to do will end up getting into things that will get them in trouble. This is where the sin of idleness, or the sin of sloth comes into play.
Sloth, or idleness is a form/type of an intentional neglect of responsibilities and obligations.
photo by Zhang Kenny @kennyzhang29
That being said, busyness, or being booked solid with activities just for the sake of keeping our schedules packed is not healthy and can lead us into another sinful pattern, idolizing busyness.
Are we worshiping our schedules? Have our social commitments and busy lives become our new god?
Have we lost ourselves to the chasing of things for the all-mighty trinity of me, myself, and I?
Has our family time lost priority in our schedules? Has our church time, our Bible time, our prayer time increased or decreased as our calendars are chalked full of activities, commitments, travel sports, volunteering…
I am not saying any of this to make anyone feel guilty. I have not mastered this, and I am just as tempted as the next person to pack my calendar. I love me a good checklist of things to be done, and I love accomplishing tasks.
I have to pray about this and I need accountability as much as anyone else, but I can assure you, Jesus never intended for our lives to be so jam packed.
Jesus took time to relax, to be still, to just be with others, to just pray, and to just be alone in the quiet. In fact, the scripture below from Luke, when Jesus was visiting the sisters Mary and Martha, He reminds them the value and importance of just being.
They had Jesus with them, if ever there was a time not to miss out, that would be it!
“Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”
I can easily be a Martha, wanting everything to be perfect, rather than choosing to sit down at the feet of Jesus and listen as Mary chose to do.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be a good hostess. There is nothing wrong with wanting to serve others. There is nothing wrong with wanting to work hard. There is nothing wrong with loving life and wanting to accomplish many things.
The problem with living in fast forward is that we lose track of and don’t recognize the opportunities to make such choices. We don’t even know they are right in front of us anymore because we live in a chronic state of stress.
Rushing here and there.
Stressing over our schedules.
Rushing makes us stressed and being stressed inspires us to stress.
photo by Andy Beales @andybeales
Stress in not only horrible for our health, but stress also caused by busyness robs us of just being. How often are you at an event, or church, maybe playing a game with your kids, and you keep thinking about what’s next?
What’s happening later or tomorrow? The addiction of busyness has robbed you of the joy in the present.
The flurry of activity steals the opportunity to integrate our life experiences. In keeping ourselves busy from sun up to sun down, never stopping to breathe or just soak up the day, precious moments and memories just slip away from us simply because we were never present in the moments.
The infamous story of, The Tortoise and the Hare, Aesop’s fable, has two life lessons, one is of the hare being so prideful that he could play around and not take the race seriously, and still beat the tortoise.
BUT, the most important moral of the story is in the end, “slow and steady wins the race.”
Our culture encourages and even worships busyness. The speed of the hare is considered golden. NO ONE wants to be compared to a tortoise, but those who learn to slow down and live without FOMO (fear of missing out) are truly the winners.
Those who learn how to live life slow and steady are the real winners. They understand the value of time and consistently moving about life unhurried and less stressed.
Something to consider: Do you live life in fast forward? Can you honestly say you are fully present in the moments and not thinking about or planning for tomorrow or the next thing? Do you live with FOMO? What will you teach your children (if applicable) about busyness? What will you do today to make sure you run your race, slow and steady, not missing those irreplaceable moments in time?
Bonus Tips: How to break the pattern of busyness paraphrased from, Slowing Down: 7 Ways to Find Balance in a Fast-Paced World, Adam Brady.
1. Consciously Recognize that Rushing Is a Habitual Mindset
2. Slowing down is INTENTIONAL
3. Develop a Healthy Relationship with time
4. Know when to say NO
5. Meditate
6. Break the pattern of busyness-Ground yourself by breathing. Visualize slowing down.
7. From Aesop’s Fable, REMEMBER, “slow and steady wins the race”
