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ROGER Henderson, a top UK stress- shrink, meets
people who are always busy. They wear their diaries as badges of honour,
take pride in being thought as indispensable and sought after. Every now and
then, they invariably say, "You have no idea how busy I am, doctor. "Why are
they all so anxious as they rush from one frantic meeting to another,
leaving behind a trail of customers feeling shortchanged? Welcome to Yet
another facet of stress, says Dr. Henderson. The person who moans
about being "too busy to even breathe" does not want sympathy but your
envy-- he want you to think: "Don't you wish you were in my catbird seat?
Don't you want to be the hotshot who can give you anything but time?"
Martin Hayward, a consumer consultant, calls it ' stress envy'. "People who
are not frantic suffer from stress envy because stress has become an
aspiration. Our role models are busy, busy, busy," he says. " The media
portrays important people as never having a spare moment. So if you're not
busy you're not interesting,"
Notice how profiles of
brilliant achievers lay stress on how busy the subject are, seven-days a
week. This is seen as an enviable sign of
brilliance rather than as a hint of a skewed and potentially unhealthy
lifestyle. Those who are habitually stressed for time are obliged sooner
than later to find time for illness. Yet the idea you could be better or
more creative by taking your time is thought to be 'seriously outmoded'.
So why do so many people brainwash themselves into burning the
candle at both ends--- working constantly and unable to prioritise? They
think if they're hot and in such demand, they must be successful. Their
packed schedules are shields behind which cower deeply stressed individuals
unwilling to face up to the awful reality. If their relationship to time has
become painful it's because they are untrue to themselves, about who they
are meant to be and what they are actually meant to serve.
Those who are caught up in the busy life have neither the time
busy life have neither the time nor quiet to come to understand themselves
and their goals. Since the opportunity for inward attention hardly ever
comes, many people have not heard from themselves for a long, long time.
Those who are always' on the
run' never meet anyone any more--- not even themselves! Rather than aspiring
to be like them, wisdom would lie in offering your compassion to these
veterans of weary treadmills to nowhere. |
