Hey you’all. It is Monday again. How did it get here so fast? So as I am getting ready for work today I have a few thoughts rattling around (shocker I know). I heard a message yesterday watching a church service on line. It was just a quick statement but it made me think. He said that we all are staying busy like we get a crown of busyness. Now that isn’t exactly how he said it, but you get the gist. We all stay so busy and if we aren’t busy, well we must be lazy or a slacker. When did we get so busy? How about you?
There are some people who if they aren’t busy they feel lost. They feel the need to be doing something all the time and if they aren’t they feel lost. Now some people are wired with higher energy or equate busyness with being productive. Some people make the busyness of life as a reason as why they don’t form interpersonal relationships. Busy with work, busy with care of their home or hobbies, so busy that they busy themselves into a lonely corner. Busyness can be good if you own your own business as that is what brings home the bacon. But sometimes people get so busy that those at home won’t be there to cook the bacon and dance in the kitchen. We are busy bees buzzing around and sometimes we go in a circle.
Think about it for a minute, how often have you just said I am not going to do anything for the day. How did you feel? I will bet you felt behind, guilty, sluggish. Or you may be that rare individual that felt no guilt, enjoyed every minute like a dog soaking up the morning sun in their favorite spot to nap. Where do we find the balance of being productive but not exclude what and who matters in life? How do we stay busy but slow down to smell the roses?
The other thing that his message led into was work and not being sluggish. Now it sounds crazy to mention a crown of busyness and then go into work. He was saying we all are called to work, we have a calling or profession on our lives be it a wife and homemaker, lawyer, nurse, retail worker and the list goes on. We weren’t made to be sluggish but we also weren’t made to work ourselves to death. It is a balance and a balance that we all have a hard time achieving. It made me think about my job. Some mornings I have a hard time getting up and go, I get plain old tired BUT I get up and go to work. I work hard but my job has worked for me. How about you? Have you worked at your job for a short period of time or long? Do you dread going to work, is it just a way to make money or do you get satisfaction from what you do? Are you so busy at your job you miss the blessings? Believe me there are days the blessings are minimal and some days they abound.
I have been at my job 23 years in August. That is a long time to say the least. The patients I have got to participate in their lives and their care, the co workers that have come and gone, the coworkers that became life long friends, the co workers that have passed away. My job was there when I had my second child, I was there when they built a new building. They were there when I went through my divorce and the diagnosis of my son’s autism, I was there for their retirements and moving away parties. My job was there through the loss of my grandmothers and my dad, I was there during the challenges each of their milestones and losses as well. My job has been one of the most rewarding and frustrating, exhilarating and exhausting journeys but it has been more than just a job, it has been a calling and it is more than just busy work and yes sometimes it has kept me too busy. Sometimes I come home emotionally spent, but it is still a privelege to go to work everyday. I am not a slacker. And sometimes the crown of busyness keeps me preoccupied.
What other crowns do we wear that we sometimes get distracted or sometimes do you let someone make you forget the queen that you are? (I had a dear coworker and amazing friend who used to tell me ‘Dont forget you are the prize’ how I miss her sweet voice and friendship and she is right I have forgotten this!) We all wear alot of hats or crowns everyday, it is when we wear it to the point that we just want to sparkle and forget to shine like the people we were meant to be, well that is when it becomes a problem. We wear the crown of busyness like a badge of honor or courage and look at me I am so busy. My thoughts is that is a crown of show and a crown wanting praise. Some people are busy and their crown gets knocked sideways and they readjust and keep going forward. Sometimes we are so busy polishing the crown that we forget to polish on the gems that make that crown. Our family, our friends, our relationships, our religion, ourselves. If we worked on each of those things, imagine how blinding that crown would be? The majority of us have to work, we were born too cute to be rich as well (wink, wink you smiled at that) so work with all the tools you have been blessed with and do that job to the best of your ability but don’t be so busy that you forget who are the gems in your crown. Just a few thoughts for the day. Now excuse me I have to put on my crown, my big girl panties and coffee and make this day happen!!