Business - Busyness

I was writing the word Busyness. I struggle with spelling and I first put the letter i in place of the y. Then I saw it - that spells business! 🤔Hmmm. Is that really what we want in our companies, shops and workplace - always with so much to do? It is good to have things going on and things to do, especially when that means customers, connections, profit and that we are getting our offering out into the world. But busyness is about excess, a bit too much, leaving little room for quiet space, being in the moment, creative time... Interesting is it not?
When I am not busy with what I consider productive things, I tend toward guilt and feeling like I am not carrying my weight. Yet, when I have time to get to sending that birthday card, sign that online petition for saving old growth or the wolves in Montana, or in support of an environmental improvement bill in the legislature, I am supporting that which I value and wish to improve in this world. If everyone is too busy to speak up, volunteer or spend time with a sick relative or sad friend, then why be doing all this? To hopefully have time after retirement? What if you don’t make it that long? What if you have few friends or family to do anything with when you get there?
I can relate to wanting more income to do things we want to do; buy things we want to buy. And while I would expect to pay a surgeon more than a librarian, some of our salaries are not related to it's value. As in the professional sports industry, or even actors, which are really for entertainment. Nothing wrong with wanting and being entertained! But compare their pay to those that provide basic building blocks of a society such as educators.  Very unbalanced. 
Where did this belief we have that equates busy and useful come from? Likely grade school. You get a star for getting your work done. You get extra points for extra credit assignments. You can actually get more than a 4.0 in high school.  And Nadia Comâneci’s 1976 (when I was a young grade school gymnast myself) perfect 10 in the Olympics. Now gymnasts can get more than a “perfect” 10. Not saying it is a bad thing, but a curiosity. Always striving for bigger and better. Again, not bad. Unless we kill or nearly so, ourselves doing it. Or give up on what we truly value and enjoy in life.
I thought about what I want my work to look and feel like. And what the larger working world might be like if we didn’t have this deep association with busyness and value. A society where everyone feels valued, loved and free to express their true self, as joy and love, like who they came in as when they arrived as an infant - full of curiosity and joy. Adventures and challenges to overcome, growth to experience, all inside a container of love, compassion, understanding and support. Kindness and heart felt connection and wanting the highest and best for all beings. Regardless of how much money you make, I want you to feel inherent worth and value.  When one feels valued and worthy, one is happy to support others and their community. But we need time for true connection and to listen, care and help. If we are busy all the time, there is little to no time for this.
Work is not only a way to make a living, it is also a way to express our gifts and talents, share our interests and creativity.  When people choose to do what they feel called in their hearts to do, that can sometimes mean less money coming in, and that scares some people off. I wonder if we were able to track and collect data regarding those that follow their bliss and those that don’t, what the bottom line truly would be. Of course we can’t monetize happiness, but unhappiness usually goes along with more illness and disease (dis - ease) and maybe even lost time and poor painful choices inside our basic needs and relationships, even an early death. Would we really choose that if we could compare those options? I don’t think we would.
That vision is so far from how we are set up as a society, it can be hard to image how everyone would be able to do what they felt called to do, with joy, and have their needs met, including the extras. But I would venture to guess that it is worth imagining and actually would work and balance out. Not everyone wants to live in a mansion, own a private jet, or drive a Bentley. Some people would still enjoy driving a big garbage truck or dump truck for a living, others would really enjoy building houses, others writing books, others cooking or growing food. If we were all happier and healthier, we would need fewer hospitals, therapists and addiction recovery programs. And I would further venture to guess, less social services, jails and police. Happy people that enjoy life and have enough of their basic needs met don’t steel nor try to escape life through drugs.
When we are not too busy to do the things we enjoy, and our businesses are not run by profits alone or worse yet, stockholder returns, people and the environment win.  When our businesses include time to connect with co-workers or customers, take work breaks, try something creative, move our bodies, and basically calm our nervous systems, then we’d have happier, healthier employees, lower health care and absentee costs, meaning lower prices for consumers or customers, and a more resilient company over all. 
Busy does NOT equate to value. Busy can be a temporary and occasional state. But is not required to be worthy of money, prestige or acceptance. Ask yourself what you equate being busy with, for yourself and others. Can you envision occasions of busyness with other times where you have enough time to get all you wish done in your day? Can you look at your todo list with different eyes? What can you trim off? What is missing from that list that is health and wellness focused? Thinking long term, what do you desire? What changes can be made to take a step toward that vision? I empower you to make even one change. Then try another. Even small things add up, especially over time and over many people. We have a ripple effect on everyone around us. Make your ripple be of more love, joy and connection. See what happens.