The De-Glorification of Busy.

Beware the barrenness of a busy life.

Socrates

I was raised on the idea that busy was good, busy means you’re hustling, and busy is the key to success. Feeling busy meant I was making it happen and doing my best. Busy meant I was leading a full life. Only later, when busy almost killed me, did I realize that busy only makes you too busy to realize you missed having a life.

When I think back, I can understand where this mentality came from. As a kid, busy was engrained into me as my mother would ask me to do chores if she didn’t see me busy, so I became rather good at looking busy. As a teen in my first jobs, I learned the importance of looking busy in front of a manager, as he viewed this as a validation of his own leadership, irrelevant is I was actually getting any work done. I college, I learned to be able to hint my professors how busy I was with their class, making him feel validated as a teacher. When I got into the professional environment, I learned to attract my supervisor’s attention as to how busy I always was making them feel validated as a boss. The end result was that when I felt busy, I also felt validated on my efforts.

Lunch at my desk, coffee on the run, conference calls while driving, and running from project to project, working overtime and the weekends, taking work home, and pushing the deadline’s envelope as work was done up to the last minute; this was my ‘every day.’ And this was done at the expense of my family, friends, and myself; where I justified my absence with work.

Is ‘work’ worth losing your friends? Your family? Yourself?

Because that’s the most dangerous one to lose; yourself. You start getting used to feeling overwhelmed with a ramped up schedule and unhealthy level of stress. But instead of realizing the damage you are doing to yourself, you just learn to develop a stronger tolerance level to abuse, where the only abuser you have is your watch and yourself.

The reality is that it wasn’t work that was keeping me busy, but the need to feel busy. I usually set my own deadlines, or could just stop taking on more work and responsibilities than I could handle. I started to work smarter, where I would actually take the time to evaluate what I wanted to achieve, instead of running out to tackle a project. I would prioritize what could be done and what would simply eat up my time without any real results.

And I forced myself to sit down and drink some coffee without any interruptions. And eat lunch, and talk with my friends, and spend time with my family. And my creativity and self-development went into overdrive all by itself. Because that’s how the mind works. If you keep it busy thinking it’s busy, it doesn’t do much else.

Do understand that I am not talking about slacking, spending hours on your mobile or on video games. To your mind, working on a project and playing another level, there’s no difference.

It’s about learning to take time to literally smell the roses. Enjoy looking at the people walking by as you savor your coffee. Take the time to taste your food, to have actual conversations with people, to run around with your kids, or simply to take a walk. Ferris Bueller said it best when he told us that “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

Stop Excusing Yourself And Improve Yourself.

Since they invented excuses, everyone does OK.

Latino Proverb

"I like myself and I am fine with myself… so F@ck you for making me look bad!"

That was basically the sentiment most of the smart kids had to deal with while in high school and college. When a professor gave a test where almost everyone failed, the kids would go on rants looking for excuses as to why they didn’t do well, the main one being that the professor wants to fail them all. To avoid a mob of angry parents and faculty members, the professor would try to modify the grading curve to adjust for the lower grades. That worked only when there wasn’t a Curve Breaker (a literal translation of the term ‘rompe curva’ in Spanish). This was that one or two students who did exceptionally well in the test. Their success would make null any attempts to change the grading requirements.

To those with lower grades would complain that competing with the smart kids was unfair, as these kids were so smart they didn’t need to study. What they failed to realize is that the ‘smart kids’ would commit endless hours to studying and reviewing the class material. Since making excuses and threatening others into the mediocrity of the group level was a lot easier than studying, you can guess what the action taken was.

But now we are all grown up, and mature, and capable of a level of accountability and self-responsibility that was lacking during our school days, so this has stopped.

Yeah…

The reality of today’s society is that this same attitude has been expanded to everything and everyone. We see this as people openly attack and shame anyone who puts in an exceptional effort into ANYTHING. From going after the fitness pro for looking too ‘fit’, or the model for being too attractive, or entrepreneur for being too successful, or  simply the coworker doing a better job than us; society will attack the exceptional without even considering the exceptional effort the person does. They will then justify themselves with a list of excuses, starting with “I’m fine with myself.” If you are so ‘fine’ with yourself, why does anyone who is ‘better’ make you so insecure about yourself?

And the society of excuses has permeated into everything we do. When people fail us, they don’t apologize, but rather try to excuse their actions. “Nobody’s perfect” or “I was too busy.” We have removed any and all responsibility for ourselves with the general attitude of “you have to like me the way I am or something is wrong with you. YOU are the problem.” By shaming the other person you, not only excuse yourself from taking any responsibility for yourself, but also try to drag the other person to your own level of mediocrity and conformism.

You are not into fitness and don’t want chiseled abs? Fine, and that’s ok. Just don’t put down those who go to the gym while you head out to the ‘all-you-can-eat-buffet.’ You’re not really into studying, happy with just a passing grade? Then don’t try to put down those who pull in all-nighters, every night, to get good grades.

Instead of shaming these people, learn from them. I am not saying that everyone should have the body of a Greek statue, but they probably know more about fitness than you. You might not be as good at math as they are, ask them to help you out and tutor you. Their exceptional efforts are usually accompanied with a constant search for what works best. Ask them to help you to be better.

The other side of excuses is not only not wanting to be better but to actually justifying being worse, as you refuse to recognize when you hurt anyone. If you make a mistake, or hurt someone, or fail to keep a promise; don’t excuse yourself. Take some responsibility for your actions and apologize. Make it up to the person, fix the problem. Stop try to dismiss it with empty excuses.

We can DO better than that, and we sure as hell can BE better than that. And that starts with understanding that excuses are just that, excuses. Your friends don’t need them and your enemies don’t care for them.

Kill The Groundhog Before Heading Out.

I believe I can see the future

Cause I repeat the same routine

I think I used to have a purpose

But then again

That might have been a dream

I think I used to have a voice

Now I never make a sound

I just do what I've been told

Every Day Is Exactly The Same, by Nine Inch Nails.

A few years ago, the movie GroundhogDay came out. It’s a wonderful movie about a man who was doomed to relive the same day over and over until he got it right. Not so long ago Edge ofTomorrow dealt with a similar subject. Theorists call this a temporal loop or a glitch in the continuum of time. Most people just call this their ‘everyday’ life.

We have all dealt with this, a life where every day is just a repeat of the day before and tomorrow will be a repeat of today. After a while you just default into an automata state where you simply go through the motions of living, while you slowly stop being alive. Sure, you might realize the horrible spiral you are going down into, yet do nothing to actually change it. At this point you are staring into Einstein’s Insanity, expecting your life to change while doing the same things, day in and day out.

The reality is that you are constantly on a path, a journey, whether you like it or not. It’s not determined by what happens to you or even by your surroundings. It’s defined by how you react to what’s around you and defined by every step you take, willing to take them or not. When you understand this, you understand that you are in life where you have chosen to be.

You feel you are in a rut? You are stuck in an unfulfilling job or a bad relationship? It’s your choices that have led you down those paths. Yes, this means your life is your fault up to a point. And sitting on your ass on a sofa flipping channels wishing for a better life while whining about the one you have, won’t make it happen. This is not something most people want to admit or confront, because it’s a horrible realization.

But with this realization does come some comfort. The same way your actions got you to where you are now, they can get you out of it. It’s you who controls the path you walk, the only person who can get you out of where you are now. Yes, it’s scary to step out to the unknown, to challenge what people expect from you, to get off your ass and stand up from that sofa.

It’s scare to kill that Groundhog so you never have to repeat that day again.

But you know what you gain when you change your ‘everyday’ life? A life!

Date A Man Who Dances (Guest Post)

Luke Davis, the Naïve Idealist, graces our site with his thoughts on dating and men who dance.

Date a man who dances because a man who dances is one of the strongest men alive. A man who dances has faced his peers and told them “Begone, give me room to move.” He is no ordinary man, when you date a man who dances that strength lies by your side. Within easy reach is a man who has convictions and isn't afraid to live by them, When you date a man who dances you can trust he is standing behind his conviction that you are a person worth dating and he won’t back down. A man who dances may have strength in his arms but his real strength lies in his mind and his passions and a man who dances has the strength to use them.

When you date a man who dances under his strength he owns a softer side. He understands the language of touch and he is strong enough to listen. A man who dances knows how to hold you. He can feel your every thought. When you date a man who dances he can tell when you are afraid, excited, in love, trusting, happy or sad. If you date a man who can dance when he holds you he also knows how to talk to you when you touch. When a man who dances holds you he can turn you around, turn you up or turn you on. His hold can make a bad day sunny, he can hold you tight so you never want to let go. A man who dances can hold you in such ways that you can close your eyes and let go and know he won’t let you fall.

A man who dances isn't a normal man. When you date a man who dances he will show the very heartbeat of life around you. He will tap it out for you until your feet want to move and your fingers twitch to the beat. A man who dances will show you that every sound has a flow and ebb and his body can float through these waves. A man who dances can take you on a journey through peaks and troughs more gloriously than any speedboat ride and when it stops you’ll be left with an empty spot you didn't know needed filling.

You see when you date a man who dances he knows how to lead. That speedboat ride wasn't chaotic and random. He sees those crests and valleys and he will take you through them with ease. Because a man who dances has the path picked out. When you date a man who dances you won’t stumble because when he’s holding you he already knows you’re on the wrong foot. A man who dances will change the move so your wrong foot is exactly the right foot. A man who dances will give you so many opportunities to ride those crests and be graceful, sexy, seductive and exuberant that you won’t understand how no one else can make you look and feel that way. A man who dances knows how to lead you to those places and he isn't afraid to take you there.

When you date a man who dances he makes you feel that way because he has passion in abundance. A man who dances knows that a passion shared is a passion doubled. He doesn't hide it from the world or let it squalor at the bottom of his heart too afraid to let it shine. A man who dances wants you to be so caught up in his passion that you don’t want to let go, He wants you to hold him while he dances as if nothing else existed and have that very passion reflected back to him. He wants to see his passion shine from your eyes as you ride those crests. He wants to see it turned into seduction, pleasure and desire, to see it beat out through music, rhythm and movement and a man who dances needs someone there to follow him.

You will never feel as alive as you do with a man who dances. A man who dances will show you how to live in a way that is primal. He will take your heart and your mind to a place most have forgotten. When you date a man who dances he will destroy your concepts of what men should be and show you what men really are. When you date a man who dances you must be prepared to never look back at ordinary men because few will ever hold the flame that a man who dances does. Nor will ordinary men be able to take you to the places a man who dances can. Dating a man who dances is a one way trip to a world of beauty which few can return untouched and none forget. He will set a standard you didn't know could be reached and the ordinary will never be as satisfying again.