Busyness is Not a Badge of Honor

<p>Why do people seem to take so much pride in how busy they are? I'm all for hard work, but if you don't have time for anything else, what's the point?</p> <p>--</p> <p>Please leave a review and subscribe so you never miss an episode! Questions and comments can also be emailed to <a href='mailto:info@aardvarkgirl.com'>info@aardvarkgirl.com.</a></p> <p>Connect with me through your favorite platform: <a href='https://pods.link/aardvarkgirl'>https://pods.link/aardvarkgirl</a></p> <p>--</p> <p>Because this seems to keep coming up in my conversations, both on this podcast and outside of it, I want to talk about it more specifically. There’s an epidemic out there, at least in America, where people use the word “busy” as an emblem of pride.</p> <p>“I’m soooo busy.”</p> <p>“Oh, work is great. I barely have time to sleep.”</p> <p>“Oh man, I was so slammed today I completely forgot to eat.”</p> <p>“You gotta hustle.”</p> <p>I’m sure you’ve heard all this before. But why? We do you “gotta” hustle? I’m all for hard work, as you know. You don’t find success by doing nothing. But if you’re working so hard that you don’t have time for anything else, what’s the point?</p> <p>Even if you love what you do, you need time for other things. You need a mental break from work. Time with people who aren’t your clients and vendors, even if it’s not in person.</p> <p>If you Google quotes for motivation, you’ll find all kinds of memes about the hustle that are meant to be inspirational. So I’m sure my opinion on this matter is not the norm. It often isn’t. But I have never had the goal to be busy. I’ve wanted to accomplish things. I’ve wanted to be successful. I’ve wanted specific outcomes to result from my hard work. But I have never once thought, I wish I was busier.</p> <p>My definition of successful doesn’t include constant busyness. I don’t want to be so busy building an empire that there isn’t time for anything else. Maybe that means I’ll never have an international multi-billion dollar corporation to my name, but that’