Author: A Little Faith Lift…Finding Joy Beyond Rejection
www.alittlefaithlift.com
AWSA (Advanced Writers & Speakers Assoc.)
Busyness is a thief. It is. For too many of us, we allow it to dictate our schedules, proudly taking on more than we should, loving the bragging rights we have when we can share just how crazy our lives are. We fancy the praise when others tell us they don’t know “how” we do it. Crazy, isn’t it?
Crazy enough to die for our efforts. After all, our value is based on how fast we pace ourselves, right? Researchers estimate that long, working hours contribute to 745,000 global deaths from stroke and heart disease annually. The real thief is that we cannot get back the hours we spend keeping busy.
We must learn the power of the word “No!” when pressed to dig deeper, answer the imperative, fulfill the obligations placed on us by others (and ourselves). Researchers call it the “mere urgency effect.” We’re biologically wired to prioritize urgent over important. In studies, people consistently chose time-sensitive tasks with small rewards over important tasks with bigger payoffs. Our brains literally sabotage our priorities.
The important stuff gets lost in our busyness. The important—our health, our relationships, our long-term goals, our personal growth—sits quietly in the corner, patiently waiting for us to find time to prioritize our lives. But do we pay any attention to it? Do we care what really matters enough to give our time our “first fruits”?
Until we put down our cellphones (let’s say, all day Sunday, every meal, morning and nighttime, whenever we have quality time with our family) and heed our loved ones’ needs to be heard, we are risking them resenting our lack of attention and importance. Yesterday, I was talking on a Facetime call with my daughter-in-law Kristen. I asked her what she and her girls were doing all day, and she said they would start by “cleaning the house.”
Tatum, the three-year-old, was listening. I asked her if she was going to help. She was. When I asked “how” she was going to help, she said “I’m going to play.” She meant it, even though her mother had something different in mind. Tatum ran to her dad’s office and came out with her play broom to show me how cooperative she could be.
I loved watching her “sweep,” until Paige, her five-year-old sister, found the toy mop. What started out as cleaning, quickly turned into a sword fight…broom vs. mop. Not unlike how I work. I start off on one task (like writing this article) and get side-tracked. Don’t I need to clean out my refrigerator? Is that a cobweb I see? How about that thank-you note I forgot to write?
The most successful people aren’t the ones doing the most. They are the ones doing the right (i.e., meaningful) things successfully. The world won’t slow down for you or me. If anything, it speeds up. Every day brings more notifications, more demands, more opportunities to say yes to things that don’t matter.
Colossians 4:5 simplifies what our goal should be: Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. I mean, seriously…what’s a cobweb or two between friends?