Maybe we're just hooked on successfully looking busy
IT'S 10am and I have done more this morning than I ever remember being possible when I was 20. And about a year's worth more than when I was little.
Today, by mid-morning, I am already tired and ready for bed. I'm not sick, running low on energy or disorganised. In fact, I'm a military machine and already know what we're having for supper.
There's no living in the now these days – if we're not thinking ahead, we're already behind. All of this makes me as typical as your average responsible citizen, because research proves what most of us already know – we glorify "busy".
I've noticed that when we stop for coffee, everybody tells the same story as we flop onto a chair, smooth our hair, fiddle with phones and wallets and let out a collective colossal, world-weary yawn.
"I'm so hectic, dude," we'll say. "I'm finished. I haven't stopped all day. Where's the time gone, chick? Quick coffee, can't stay, still have to pick up 'x' from 'y' and get 'a' to sort out 'b' in time for 'c' tomorrow. Flip! No way is it 5pm already? The chicken won't be defrosted. Can you get me a takeaway cup? Have to go. Catch up next week?"
It's as though we're addicted to speed. When we hang out with people who look calm, content and wholly unhurried, we assume that they're on something, or being irresponsible. At the very least, they must be surrounded by a battery of helpers, saints as children and no wireless, because they never check their phones when we're with them. Never. Einstein theorised that time is relative. Scientists posit that as a result, time isn't a constant.
For people like my friend Podge, science is just an old man's tool for proving what bog standard people with a half a brain should know already: what you put in, you get out. And so, if you're putting in busy, then busy is what you'll get. When I have coffee with Podge, time slows down. This is a genuine experience which happens again and again. There's something about hanging out with Podge that soothes, caresses your frazzle, makes you forget to dart your eyes at your inbox.
When I ask her about this, as part of my global plan to spread enlightenment to others, she tells me to shut up and drink my coffee.
It was she who told me once that we are hooked on the glorification of busy. And part of the reason is that if we're not looking busy, we can't be important – and we're not moving briskly towards success.
Once, when I started telling her about my day (in a harried, breathless tone), she shrugged and said: "I'm not really interested in your day. It's yours, and you were doing your stuff, and that's great. But I didn't invite it to my table. I only invited you."
And so we shut up, sat and drank our coffee, looking at trees and birds for a while. Those 20 minutes felt like a long, lazy afternoon; and mysteriously, I still had time to do 'x' and 'y', fetch 'a' for 'b' and defrost the chicken before midnight.
