"I'm so busy"

How many times have we heard that? How many times have we said that? If you live in the corporate world, you hear it a lot. Sometimes I feel guilty if I'm not busy, like we are all in a contest to see who can take on the most without having a nervous break down. I guess I can see where the whole "rat race" concept really came from.

There are many reasons that we all are busier these days. One of my least favorites is the dreaded blackberry. Of course cell phones, email and other technological "advances" act as electronic leashes as well, but the blackberry is my personal arch-nemesis. Now, before I start on this rant, I know, I know. Some people have to have one for their jobs, sadly they are often requirements now. And not everybody is obnoxious with them. Some of you show great restraint and self-discipline, so I'm not talking to you.

However, I am talking to the rest of you. You know who you are. You want us all to see that you have the blackberry. You need to look at it every so often, just to remind us all how important you are. If an email comes, you must look at it. Never mind if it were an actual emergency, someone would call you and not email you. I'm not sure at what point it became acceptable for someone to be mid-conversation, just stop talking or listening, and start blackberry-ing. And I also love how they act like you should keep on with the conversation and say something like "Uh-huh, sorry, no go ahead, I'm listening, sorry, I just have to deal with this 'real quick'". I also love how when you are at a meal with a blackberry addict, they dramatically sit it on the table (maybe soon they will request a place setting for it). It is a not at all subtle message to the other table mates. "If this thing goes off, I'm going to look at it, because it's important and I'm important".

So, the blackberry enables the "busy-ness". If you do not have a blackberry, clearly you are not as busy or important. Sometimes my friends and co-workers talk about being busy like it is a badge of honor, for example, "I worked 50 hours last week, my kid had an ear infection and had to go to the dr. twice, I did 8 loads of laundry, renovated my kitchen, plus I don't think I slept more than 4 hours". This is not good!

I often feel the reproachful eye at my lackadaisical life style. I never do as much as anyone else, and probably err on the side of lazy. I hate multi-tasking and I don't accomplish half as much as most other people in my life. I sleep until 10 or later sometimes on the weekends and have 0 guilt about it. Even when you smug "morning people" call and say, with exasperation, "Are you just now getting up?". Don't even get me started on the morning people. I'm going to start calling you guys at 11 pm and say, "Are you in bed already?".

About once a week, in my house, we do an un-plugged night. We don't watch tv, we don't get on our computers, we don't talk on the phone. We do let ourselves listen to the radio, which come to think of it is kind of cheating. I'll admit that sometimes I dread it. I think about how great it would be to just watch tv, and not have to think or talk (again, lazy). I'm never sad that we do it though. We've probably had some of our best conversations on "technology fast" night. We tend to have those conversations that you put off, because you don't really want to dig into it, because it will take too long and you're too busy.

Anyway, this post is pretty all over the place, but in summary:
1. Don't brag about being busy.
2. Join me in the fight to outlaw blackberries.
3. Try a night or two without technology, see what happens.