Are families too busy?

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure policy.

🏡 Click HERE to Join us for 40 Days of Decluttering🏡

🏡 Click HERE to Join Us for 40 Days of Decluttering🏡

Are families too busy?  Is your family too busy? 

Do you ever feel like you are too busy & stressed?  You aren’t alone.  Last year, I had read an article titled The Disease of Being Busy by Omid Safi. I came across that article again this week and it spoke to me.

To quote from this article:

“I saw a dear friend a few days ago. I stopped by to ask her how she was doing, how her family was. She looked up, voice lowered, and just whimpered: “I’m so busy… I am so busy… have so much going on.”

Almost immediately after, I ran into another friend and asked him how he was. Again, same tone, same response: “I’m just so busy… got so much to do.”

The tone was exacerbated, tired, even overwhelmed.

And it’s not just adults. When we moved to North Carolina about ten years ago, we were thrilled to be moving to a city with a great school system. We found a diverse neighborhood, filled with families. Everything felt good, felt right.

After we settled in, we went to one of the friendly neighbors, asking if their daughter and our daughter could get together and play. The mother, a really lovely person, reached for her phone and pulled out the calendar function.

She scrolled… and scrolled… and scrolled. She finally said: “She has a 45-minute opening two and half weeks from now. The rest of the time it’s gymnastics, piano, and voice lessons. She’s just…. so busy.”

Horribly destructive habits start early, really early.

How did we end up living like this? Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we do this to our children? When did we forget that we are human beings, not human doings?

Whatever happened to a world in which kids get muddy, get dirty, get messy, and heavens, get bored? Do we love our children so much that we overschedule them, making them stressed and busy — just like us?

What happened to a world in which we can sit with the people we love so much and have slow conversations about the state of our heart and soul, conversations that slowly unfold, conversations with pauses and silences that we are in no rush to fill?

How did we create a world in which we have more and more and more to do with less time for leisure, less time for reflection, less time for community, less time to just… be?”

So, Mickey and I decided we weren’t going to try to keep up in the world… and we didn’t want to teach our kids to be that busy either. We were going to LIVE life because it is enjoyable, fun, wonderful and amazing when you live it right. Yes, life is busy, but we don’t have to make it even busier. We can try to scale back.

I think about my grandma: she raised four kids at home…

She and my grandpap had one car that they shared. Her days were filled with laughter from her children, games that they played together, housework, cooking, and love.

She was one of the happiest, most grateful people that I have known.

Yes, my grandma had to do more work because she didn’t have the technological innovations that we have now that give us the ability to do more… faster. But what really happens?

We do more… all the time. We get X done faster, so we have time to add Y & Z.

I want to remind myself (and you) to just take a step back and think about how we are living our lives. We need to be “more than just a machine, checking off items from our to-do list.”

We need to be involved with our family- playing games, baking cookies, sitting down to have a conversation, building with blocks, practicing spelling words, teaching the new math tricks, going on a walk and just talking…

And we need to just BE.
Be in the moment.
Be relaxed.

Take a bike ride if you want… or don’t… but do what you want to do today.

Talk to your family. Just sit & talk. Teach them patience and listening skills by having conversations with them.

I want our kids to play, to laugh, to come up with ways to entertain themselves, to dream and hope, to set goals for themselves, to enjoy spending time with us. I want to create a home that they will want to come home to.

I don’t want to be so busy that I forget to just ENJOY LIFE and I certainly don’t want to teach them to be that busy. When we cut out all of the “extra stuff” we find that we have time for the normal day-to-day stuff.   We find time for spending time with our family, cleaning our house, cooking our meals, spending time on that project we’ve been wanting to do or jutting sitting down to reading a great book.

It starts with us.  It starts at home.

Today, put your to-do list aside and just do what makes you happy today. Do what makes you smile.

Spend time with your family…  it is when you really get a chance to bond, to just sit and talk.  You spend time together and just enjoy being together.

Remember… it doesn’t have to be this huge amazing adventure – simple times matter just as much.

Have a wonderful day & soak up the memories. 🙂

 

You’re welcome to download my FREE One-On-One Time Calendar(to start focusing on what really matters).    I’ll send you the calendar & some tips via e-mail.

More posts you might like: