Today we ladder off yesterday’s post that talked about a busy life being barren.
I looked for a statistic on how many people reply to the question “how are you?” with “I’m busy”.
While a metric for that didn’t emerge, I found a study on busyness.
This report indicates that women in their 30’s are self-reported as the busiest.
There are likely many reasons for this – growing careers, possibly starting families, lots going on.
Yet, even for this group with a life full of responsibility, there must be a better response.
My Perspective
I think digging into our “busy” could provide us all insights.
When someone asks how we are and we reply, “I’m so busy”, what is the reason behind that?
Maybe we have too much to do that day.
If that is true, we could push ourselves to remove some of the activities.
Maybe that response is easy.
In that case, we could develop a different go-to response for the “how are you” question.
Maybe we are afraid to tell someone we have a relatively light day.
If this is the situation, we might explore why we are reluctant to share that with others.
Maybe we are procrastinating on a difficult project.
If this is true, we could get underneath why we are avoiding starting the project.
Your Turn
Do you respond to the question “how are you?” with “really busy”?
Considering the reasons above and more you can think of, why do you use this response?
What might you do to begin to change this response habit?