Busy

“I work hard doing things that I like, so that I don’t have to have to work hard doing things that I don’t like.”

(Anon)

I’m easily seduced by my own busyness.

Especially when I’m riding on a wave of seasonal liveliness and celebration.

I’m lucky enough to do work that I really enjoy: finding ways to make sense of our experiences of life, and understanding how meaning shifts for us in successive life stages. I’m also grateful for supportive colleagues who are good friends, and I have choices around how, when and where I work.

So, busy can be fun, energetic, engaging… and I love to kid myself that I can multi-task without tripping over.

Yet busy has edges. Busy can isolate. Busy has consequences.

I’m learning to reconfigure my relationship to work. I know that work easily becomes a singular endeavour; we are assessed on our individual performance, responsibility can be personal, remuneration is often specific and undisclosed. We become separated. And so I take stuff on… I get task focussed and one dimensional… I rely on busy to get things done.

But it’s obvious that all of this is an illusion. We work together; socially, collectively, collaboratively. We are networked and entangled. And we know that we need to reconsider many of our technologies and working practices to bridge the gap between our current reality and the kind of organisation that will address the need for ecological sustainability, sociability and regeneration.

Fritjof Capra asks us to bring life into human organisations by facilitating communities that increase flexibility, creativity and learning potential. As we lift our gaze and connect with each other, the focus on life begins to empower us:

“It creates mentally and emotionally healthy working environments in which people feel that they are supported in their striving to achieve their own goals and do not have to sacrifice their integrity to meet the goals of the organisation.”

Celebrating community helps us share a bigger picture of life. Less task focussed and more wholesome.

And I’m less likely to trip in the street as I busily stare at my phone.

Notes:

There is a Zen proverb that goes something like this: “If you don’t have time to meditate for an hour everyday, you should meditate for two hours.” It’s a noteworthy challenge.

Fritjof Capra writes compellingly about our increasingly complex, intertwined lives. My quote is from ‘The Hidden Connections: A science for sustainable living.’

I met Fritjof when he presented with Margaret Wheatley at Schumacher College in Dartington, Devon. Schumacher continues to explore the systems view of life and systems thinking in relationship to ecology and sustainability - take a look at some of their offers. Highly recommended!