The Badge of Busyness

Below is a poem about Busyness by coach, Christine Arylo. Although the poem is for women, both genders fall under the whip of the task-master’s ‘To Do’ list. Don’t get me wrong, it’s important to get things done, but it’s also important not to. In other words, we need to keep a balance between the part of us that wants to DO and the part of us that wants to BE!

That’s why at the top of my page in the morning, ABOVE my ‘To Do’ list is my ‘To Be’ list. Yes, I want to get things done, but I am old enough and wise enough to know that the ‘To Do’ list is endless and that accomplishing what’s on it may feel good, but it’s not the kind of deep, soulful feeling good that I choose to make my life about. Also, it reminds me that even when I’m attending to my ‘To Do’ list, I can do it in a way that honours my beingness. In other words, I can get things done without busyness. Busyness presumes preoccupation and I can’t experience life fully when I’m preoccupied.

Beingness versus Busyness:

What feels good, good deep down, is when I move through my days with certain beingness qualities. For me, one of the most important ones is ‘being spacious’. When I am being spacious, I give myself time, give myself room, the room to experience the juiciness of the world and not miss it. When I do this, I usually find myself taking a deep breath and noticing the exquisite beauty of something in the world around me. Often I feel an immediate sense of happiness. I am out of my head and out of the contraction that busyness likes to create and into the present moment, which is the only place I can truly experience life. And, even if I carry on with my To Do list, I can do it with a sense of spaciousness. That, to me, is mastery!

Here’s the poem.

We Burn Our Badges of Busyness:

By
Christine Arylo
on May 3, 2011 12:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

What are we teaching our girls?

You can be anything.
You can do anything.
You can have anything.

Now get going.

There is much to do.
So much that you will never feel like you’ve done it all.

Allow me to introduce you to your new lifetime companion
Her name is “To-Do List”

She will follow you everywhere from now on
She will be there to greet you when you wake
She will hang out near you all day long
And she will be there when you lay your head down to rest
Making sure that you don’t forget her, even as you try to sleep

You will learn to wear her as a badge of honor
This flashing symbol of busy-ness
She thrives on attention,
lives for compliments,
She seeks out acknowledgments of her busyness,
and ability to ‘get it all done’
without a sweat, and with a smile

She is not stingy
She loves to share accolades with her sister super women
Swooning and commenting on their multi-tasking feats
As if their doingness was the latest, most fabulous, all-the-rage hat

Some days you will be tired
And will want to set down the to dos
Take a break from your badge,
Whose weight you notice has become quiet heavy

You will try to unpin it
Pull it, tear it, yank it,
But no matter how hard you try
Your badge of busyness
Will not budge

Your to-do list
Doesn’t take kindly to being set down
Or Forgotten
She is fiercely intent on
Staying alive
Remaining on center stage
Where she can always be seen

What they (we) didn’t tell you
When you accepted your to-do list as a rite of passage
And fashioned on your badge with pride
Was that try as you might
When you tire
No matter how hard you try
You can’t hide
You can’t run
You can’t even pin that relentless list on some other unsuspecting soul

But YOU can choose

Girl, woman, sister
You have a choice to NEVER pick up
This badge of busyness
You have the choice to walk away and NEVER look back
Not because you stop doing and achieving
Which I know is one of your (my) greatest, unspoken fears
But because you know that you don’t need a
Badge of busyness or a never-ending list of to-dos
To prove your worth

Stand tall
Turn on your heel now
Do not follow us
A generation of women who unknowningly ran down the aisle
To marry busy-ness
And ended up with a sense of self
Tied to ‘what I’ve accomplished and gotten done in a day”

Turn away
Run away
And change your sense of self
for the good
of us all

As you turn away
We will burn our badges
And together we will change
The decree of women forever

“Yes I can do anything.”
“Yes I can be anything.”
“Yes I can have anything.”

BUT NO … I DON’T NEED TO DO BE AND HAVE EVERYTHING

I am valuable simply because I am
Even if I never pick up another to do
Even when I am doing nothing
Especially when I am just being
I am worthy

Because I know the truth

I am enough
Simply because I am

And so are you.

Mother.
Sister.
Daughter.
Woman.