Being busy can be healthy, but being “too busy” is not healthy. Being active and engaged and inspired, yes that’s healthy. Being drained, overwhelmed, and stressed out is not. It’s a fine line and most of us have crossed over it. Today being too busy causes people to feel less connected, creates children who are stressed at young ages, and fosters a world where we feel spiritually, emotionally, and physically “off”. We feel all this, yet we don’t do anything about it. Or don’t know we can.

How did we get so busy in the first place?

With all of the new technology and faster, easier ways of communicating, shouldn’t we theoretically be less busy and have more free time? Yet we find ourselves with less time and more to do. We are spending more and more time doing things we’ve never done before, like posting on social media or texting from our mobile device. These activities, while they feel quick in the moment, actually can cause us to feel busier. The sense that we are always “on” or always “checking in” can lead to higher levels of stress.

Why do we keep ourselves so busy in the first place?

Perhaps a part of us actually believes that being busy is a good thing. It allows us to tell other people we’re not lazy. That we have “a life”. We have things to do, we’re important, we’re needed. Busy equals success in our minds. For many people, this busyness has become a state of being that is a “sickness”. Some are even calling it a disease, or rather a dis-ease. A state that puts us out of ease. When we’re out of ease, we becomes stressed. And stress can lead to a laundry list of health concerns most people would like to avoid.

Deciding to not be busy is a choice we can make.

We need to have a mindset shift and realize that being busy is not who we are as a person. Even though it’s all around us, we don’t have to identify with the role of a busy person. We can decide to take on less and instead experience more peace and space. We can let go of society’s expectations and decide to be who we really want to be.

You might be thinking, “Hey, I really am busy and there’s nothing I can do about it,” or “I like being busy,”. There’s no denying we are all busier today than ever before, but taking a look at what is filling up our lives to the point of exhaustion is a good exercise. You might find that half of the things keeping you busy really don’t fulfill you.

What if the things you think are priorities are actually just the things that hold you back from moving towards what you truly desire?