As mentioned a couple of days ago, this is something I often think about, so please don’t consider this a final report, more like a progress report (or is it even an expression of interest?)…
I am sure you have all heard it: we are busy. We have no time. Everything is done in a rush and any social event (with friends, family,…) have to be planned months in advance. We can all identify in this.
Also, we surely can remember a few times when someone told us that (I have no time) and that we felt irritated by it. What do you mean, you have no time to come to [non-random family/friends gathering]?
How did we get ourselves in there? Do we do too much, in work, outside work? Why do we always use that justification, as opposed to the million other reasons that often exist?
A few thoughts:
-a couple of weeks ago, I heard two people in their late forties say, independently but both in the academic context: “People have become so busy”. Is that true? I’m too young to have a comparison. But if it’s true, how did that happen?
-what’s most frustrating with people telling you they have no time, is that somehow, there is always an underlying comparison of time availability between people’s schedule (I have no time, see, I am busier than you). That can become really irritating. I try to avoid using that excuse for not doing things, if there are other reasons: I don’t know if I’m busier or not. That however does not imply I agree with some people who think you can always do that extra thing.
-I find that people who are actually probably very very busy (let me think, for example my friend who is a single mother of two toddlers, went through an unpleasant divorce, and all that while on probabtion period for professorship, which she got) tend to use that excuse much less often than the average. Not with me anyway, who would take no notice of it in that case.
-Sometimes I get the impression that there is this “fashion” of having to be busy. If you’re not it means you’re either a slacker, a loser, or have no social life whatsoever. So, really the only valid excuse, in that case, is “I’m too busy”.
So… I don’t know. Are we really busier then 20 years ago? Is this just a state of mind that people have put themselves into? Is it justified to be irritated by people who constantly use that? If we are busier… to what extent is this a bad/good thing? What should we do about it?
Note: I suspect there could be difference in opinion on this depending on people’s culture. This would be interesting to understand too.
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3 comments:
I think that in the age of cell phones and internet, our work can come with us pretty much everywhere. And I think that it does. So we're taking on more and more instead of leaving work at the office. Also, there is an abundance of information to sort through about any given topic; academics are expected to have more than a working familiarity with the scholarship in their field.
I think it's more of a habit. How's life going? I'm busy. Can you do X? Nope, I'm busy. It's easy to just slip into that as an excuse.
I don't necessarily think that we're more busy than years ago. I think it's just that we tend to have more blurred borders between work and personal.
There definitely is a blurring between work and non-work time.
And definitely using that excuse is legitimate in many cases, but why do we use that excuse so often for non-work things? How come we seem to think this is the only speakable one? (sorry this is confused. I'm confused on this topic).
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