Once when finding it hard to find a time slot for my next facial appointment due to my so called busy schedule, my therapist commented 你是大忙人 . I beamed a tinge of satisfaction, a modern evidence of achievement perhaps.
Yesterday's ST carried an article about how leading a frenetic life has become a status symbol. As the writer puts it "busyness has become not just a way of life but a badge of honour" and increasingly "an exhausting everydayathon". Being busy implies importance and together with hectic multi-tasking connote a full life.
Now I reflect upon the real motives behind my own engagements. Since I do a bit of everything and if people do ask me what I am busy with (after my retirement); and if I am all out to impress I can reply tongue in cheek in one of the following ways depending on who I am responding to:
- To impress someone who focuses on making money, I can say I spend much of my time trying to invest wisely
- To someone who is altruistic or believes himself to be, I can say I spend much time doing charity/volunteer work
- To someone who believes that life is an adventure, I can say I often travel
- and if one day I can be fortunate enough, I would want to say I spend a lot of time looking after my grandchildren to someone who believes life is all about family
After a bit of pondering I think I would still be doing a bit of all the above including the last if I have that fortune. Meanwhile I would include one more activity which is to keep dreaming or thinking of writing a book which will never be published, a book which will perish with me. Furthermore if I can silence the 4 types of people mentioned above, who incidentally live within me and are my biggest critique, I will likely spend a lot of my time just doing that. The biggest fan of such a project will be dreamers or what the world would describe as idlers.
One day the Idler in me will gain stature and I will want to appear important before her more than anyone else.
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