A blog by Luke Thomas, Director of Spring
A reply I’ve been noticing more and more often in daily conversation includes the word ‘busy.’ The common exchange goes something like this:
Question: “Hello. How are you?”
Reply: “Well, you know, REALLY busy!” (Often partnered with rolling eyes & a sigh – with an inflection of voice that suggests they’d rather not be SO busy.)
This is quickly followed up with a list of everything that the recipient has got going on right now. Another common reply used to be: “Very well thank you… and yourself?” But I’m not noticing this so much anymore.
Back to busy though. At first I wondered if it was just my time of life with a young family and so many commitments with work, home, community and so on. I asked myself, “is this just selective attention?” My mindset filtering for busy-ness? Is this a sociological trend that has some deeper meaning as to the way society is functioning? Is it to do with the expectations people are placing on each other? Is it a cue for blaming the popular media?
So I started paying more attention to people’s responses when I asked them how they were, but also noticing when others asked the same. A true piece of unscientific and anecdotal research if ever there was one! I kept my eyes and ears open in shops, at school drop-off, in the pub, during coaching and leadership programmes with my client organisations, with retired friends and family, at train stations. Nowhere was exempt from my odd little ritual of gathering this cultural evidence.
My conclusion? I want to open up the conversation about this more in my work. It’s happening so much I thought I’d write a blog about it. I wanted to know more about why being busy is such a prominent talking point, that it’s now up there with us Brits and our love of discussing the weather. I believe that it’s not altogether healthy to be feeling, or perceiving oneself, as quite this busy.
I’ve started a list of ideas that might be behind some of the busyness. Some of these have come directly from coaching work and people telling me their personal reasons – others are merely a guess on my part.
Circle, delete, insert new or challenge as required. What’s missing? I’d love to hear what you think in the comments below:
- Cry for help
- Dopamine fuelled by device addiction
- Badge of honour
- Secondary gain such as self-esteem or confidence
- Delusion
- Socio-economic changes in the labour market, family and cost of living
- Brexit (Ha! Had to be included because it’s brought up a lot)
- Aspiration
- Excitedness
- Way of venting
- Feelings of failure
- Keeping up with the Jones’s
Thanks very much, Luke
Great article, Luke. This resonates. I’ve also noticed people using this phrase more often, and for me it’s two things. #1 A badge of honour. There’s no doubt that many of us don’t have much time to put our feet up given our various responsibilities but I can’t help feeling that being ‘busy’ is a) a way of searching for social acceptance on the basis of the belief being that being busy is a good thing / a sign of modern day success. Perhaps it’s also sometimes exaggerated for this purpose? #2 being busy is also aspirational. Personally, I find it hard to sit still and often ‘busy’ myself. Louise just accepts this as ‘me’. Whilst I’d like to think that I don’t rave about being busy, I know I feel I need to be constantly ‘achieving’. It’s not always a good thing. But I don’t resent being ‘busy’ because in a way I like it. So it’s never an eye rolling response for me. But if others do resent the time lost, saying we’re ‘busy’ is perhaps also a way of moaning and seeking sympathy? #3 then. On a different, but somewhat related note, is one of my pet hates. Meet someone for the first time, perhaps out for drinks or at a party – what’s the most popular first question? ‘So what do you do?’ Hate it. Like this is defines us as people, and there are few other first questions that are as telling or interesting. In many ways, it asks as many questions socially as the being ‘busy’ trend.
Interesting that you’ve noticed it too David. It seems to be a complex kind of phenomenon given how varied the contexts and possible reasons are. I’m someone who typically keeps moving things along in a busy kind of fashion but always finds a benefit to stopping and just ‘being’ – especially when I’m slipping into a feeling of resentment. There are definitely times when I can class myself as your #3 and wanting sympathy to soothe my feeling of having been too busy for too long – because it ceases being enjoyable and starts to feel like resentment! I’m liking the popular first question parallel. It annoys me too… enough that when people ask me now, I play around a bit by telling them stuff about me that they aren’t expecting or asking for, but that IS what I do… just not work or career wise! For many years I classed myself as poor at small talk so started experimenting with new first questions. Here’s the ones I like using now: “How’s your day been?”>>>> “What have you been up to this week? >>>>>> “Tell me a bit about yourself.” >>>>>> “How did you come to be here today then?” >>>>> “I like your [choose an item of their clothing/accessories/shoes], where did you get that/them?” It gets all sorts of fascinating conversation bubbling!! How about you… got any one-liners?
Horrified to realise that I too have fallen into this trap. We are forgetting our manners. If we were truly busy then we probably would not have time to reel of lists of supposedly stressful tasks. It seems to be a form of communication which is more competitive than shared interest and genuine enquiry. Perhaps it is an alternative to talking about the weather. Displacement activity in slightly uncomfortable social situations.
I once met a charming young man on a train. He was a delight to chat to and now I know why! No busy lists, for one thing.
Hello again Sue. How lovely to hear from you. Yes that’s probably true – you’ve made me chuckle with that! And I agree, it does feel competitive. Ah you’re too kind – that was a wonderful chat. You rescued me on that baking hot day when I was parched with dehydration and hunting for water!