busyness

anyone who knows me knows that i tend to be pretty busy. somewhere around my high school years i realized that i am good at multitasking and that i am happy when i have a variety of different things going on. only when i feel myself getting anxious, or when i cant get enough sleep, do i take that as a sign to dial it back, because in general i feel happier when i have a lot to do than when i don't. i suppose its because being busy makes me feel productive.

lately, though, i have been allowing myself the luxury of relaxing a bit more often - its part of my effort to be more attuned to the universe. one way i do this is conscious "wandering" on the internet -- letting click lead to click until i have no idea how i even got to where i ended up (a virtual version of flipping through a magazine or killing time at a flea market). its liberating to just see where i land what i can discover. i've found some pretty interesting people/websites/thoughts that way... or they've found me. one such post was from a pastor in LA named toure roberts. i discovered him in december when i really needed to hear some of the things he had to say. then recently i found (thru twitter) that pastor roberts has a blog. how i missed this before is a mystery, but then his blog found me just as i was thinking about my lack of focus. here is an exerpt:

"We can get so lost in busyness that we actually forget what really matters to us most in life and lose sight of the true reason for us even working. Busyness begins to take on a life of it’s own and the next thing we know we’re living the life of busyness as opposed to the life that’s according to our purpose. It’s important to remember that our purpose is not to serve busyness, but rather our busyness is to serve our purpose. This requires daily minute-by-minute moment-by-moment focus on our purpose to make certain that all of our activities and all of our comings and goings are moving us closer toward our purpose instead of furthering us away from it."

http://toureroberts.tumblr.com/post/16007714459/the-two-most-important-questions-you-can-ever-ask

it is true that we can take activity as productiveness... but not all motion leads us forward. a friend of mine calls this "twirling" - moving from place-to-place only to find we are being led in circles and not progressing.

at those times it's important to stop and check ourselves. asking questions like these, and like the 10 questions i posted previously, can help make sure we are acting with purpose.