BECOMING You.

July 7th, 2022

Nowadays, just like when you’re driving around and stop at a red light and
look around you and see every head down, buried into their CRUCIAL text
messages, emails, or social media notifications, another one of the very common “trends” of the times is, “Hey, how are you doing?” And I
swear the answer is almost Always “Busy!” … Mmm Shocking… You’re busy. I’ll make sure to call you and check back in on you on those juicy life details, thanks. Not only is that very surface level and teaching/enabling the people in your life to get comfortable and stay in the surface level with you (which is also now a 21st century trend), but in these times we are in, there truly is an overwhelming sense of nobility in being BUSY. We all strive to be Busy… So much so, that the timeless phrases like “You only live once” and “Stop to smell the roses”, or “Live your life to the fullest”, are slowly making their way out the door. It’s not as popular as it once was to truly, without acknowledgement, without posting, without letting everyone know, without receiving some form of validation, ENJOY your life and the moments, people, and experiences it offers us. We race around life with enough ‘motivation’ and ‘drive’ to make us Always want the next thing… As if we are standing at the bottom of a mountain sized staircase at the beginning of our lives, and ALL WE WANT is to be able to get up that first stair step… Until we do… and then as quickly as a small celebration even really begins, it just as quickly passes as we notice the next stair towering in front of us. We look around us and see all the different people around us on a different stair than we are on, and instead of being grateful for the accomplishment we just made, we begin onto the next one.

Now, I am not one to judge on this, as I personally am the poster child of
“Racing up the stairs” without even taking a breath or looking back. Always wanting the next thing and the next accomplishment, the next gain, the next challenge. I have learned to see and appreciate the beauty of this trait, in my life, and appreciate it for what it is because it is what allowed me the “balls” (for lack of a better term) to just jump off the ‘secure career cliff’ I was standing on, into the unknown abyss, and start my design
business at 24 years old with no completed degree or any Real credentials. HOWEVER, in your life, if you cannot learn to Balance the Drive with the Gratitude, and the ability to “stop and smell the roses”, you will
get to the end of your climb, to the top stair, and realize you made it, Woohoooo, and yet… didn’t truly enjoy a single step of the way.

One day, when you leave this earth behind, people will not be around your
grave clapping because of how successfully and nobly busy you were… In the end, there isn’t beauty in being responsibly busy… There are outcomes
in being responsibly busy (with its own sense of reward; for a different day’s entry), but there IS Beauty in making Time for those around you, for the reason you’re even here on this earth, for the important things and people in your life. Or, think about this, maybe not even the important people in YOUR life directly, but the people out there that already Don’t feel important (there are a Lot of these people)… Like that one girl that works at the coffee shop, and in the midst of your ‘Busyness’, your important phone call, while also writing up an email for work, you just barked your order at her, and didn’t stop for one minute to look her in the eye, ask her how her day is going, and show her the decency that Every human on this planet deserves. If this is something you allow yourself to do, you have fallen into the heard of sheep that believe this life is about THEM and THEIR own personal gain. Therefore, missing the greatest gift we have ever been given by God as a human race… Relationship. The most intricate, deeply thought out, beautiful, wonderful creations God ever came up with… Our ability to be in Relationship with others, at different levels. Don’t let a busy schedule steal whatever time you have here on this earth. Let laughter, connection, deep moments and conversation, intimacy, gratitude, and experiences steal time away from you, where you look at the clock and hadn’t realized you’d been enjoying the presence of someone for almost 3 hours now, thinking it had only been maybe one hour, or you sat on that one rock in that one spot in the mountains so long that you have to jump down and make the hike back down quickly, before it gets dark.

Slow down and give your partner a few moments of gratitude for who they are to you, and dig further into the details of their day, and conversations or interactions they may have had, good or bad… Slow down to ask your children if they had any dreams that they can remember vs just asking them how they slept, or how they are doing with their friendships, and then press in deeper. Slow down enough to notice a smile in the office from someone who is doing everything just to force a smile that day or week, and isn’t doing very well, and just needs someone to notice (also a lot of these people out there)… and slow down to look the barista in the eyes and ask Her how Her morning is going.

Those little things go a long way, and you miss every single opportunity if
you’re too focused on bulldozing through your important and oh so noble,
busyness every day, to hopefully “climb that next step” here soon, to catch up with Martha and Stewart McPerfect across the street whose busy efforts just afforded them a new boat that they can ‘impress’ people with in a state that’s only really “boat-able” 5 months of the year. Whoopee, guys. I make jokes, but we do live in a world that revolves around show, and working our butts off to people please and impress most people who could really give a crap who we are and what we do. Its not about getting from point A to point B, its about how you look while doing it… Truth, but all a deeper topic for a different day… So, I digress.

I read half a book once (or 50 times, because that’s just me), called
Essentialism by Greg McKeown, where he told a story about a man who was so busy in the company he was in, he didn’t give himself the time to decide whether he should even be at the company. Being nobly busy can tend to put us in this place of “going with the motions” so much that we turn our brain robotic and get comfortable with it all, and forget what an anomaly ALL of this is… Us, humans, oxygen, this big planet floating in the sky.

To me, it all comes down to why we are here on this earth… As you know, it
all comes down to God for me, and why he mad us, and what he has called us each to do individually. In my life, there was a period of time where I was hurting and just making Bad decisions. Bad decision making, mixed with the bad crowd of people I surrounded myself with, and a lot of pain I didn’t know what to do with led me into digging a hole for myself that I barely made it out of… BUT, God prevailed in my life because at some point, I was tired of fighting, and I handed it all over to Him… and then my life, my calling, my talents and skills, my love for people and ability to love people on a deep level started being extremely fruitful in my life… And the moral of this story is, the devil, satan, the man downstairs (whatever you want to label him), doesn’t just stop there. Once he loses your focus or what I like to consider “your vote”, he doesn’t give up there, he turns up the heat and gets creative. The ONE thing that became so real to me in my life after getting my ‘stuff’ together was, “Oh dang”, ‘If he can’t make you Bad, he will make you Busy.’ So busy and distracted by the wrong things, idols, money, gain, responsibilities, that again you aren’t focused on why we are all here and what God has for you, and wants to do with you, in your life. Boom. He wins again.

The nobility behind being busy is the route to a forgettable lifetime, and quick feeling lifespan. SPEND TIME in the things that matter…. BALANCE your drive to give yourself a better life, more money in your bank, a more comfortable lifestyle, AND the smell of the roses, AND acknowledging the girl at the coffee shop, AND spending quality time with your kids, partner, friends, and being kind to strangers, and the most important, God’s hand in your life. Don’t miss out on why you’re here.

‘Busy’ is Only actually beautiful whilst living in Complete Balance with the rest of what Truly Matters… otherwise, its toxic.

Stay purposeful and intentional, my friends!