#245 Why so terribly busy?

     “I think if we’re honest with ourselves, we can agree that our busyness – whether of body or of mind – is often a distraction, a way of avoiding others, avoiding intimacy, avoiding ourselves. We keep busy to push back our fears, our loneliness, our self-doubt, our questions about purposes and ends. We want to know we matter, we want to know our lives are worthwhile. And when we’re not sure, we work that much harder, we worry that much more. In the face of uncertainty, we keep busy. These days, the idea of original sin has grown unfashionable, but to me it seems as good a way as any of naming that deep feeling of unworthiness so many of us suffer, driving us to hurl a lifetime of work and worry into a pit that can never be filled. Unchecked, this impulse can drag us into bitterness, loneliness, depression, and despair.”

        Simmons P. Learning to fall. The blessings of an imperfect life. Bantam Books, NY, 2000.

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