Be Nobody (25 page)

And what's the unspoken message behind such tedious sharing and cataloging of our many activities?

I'm really, really busy—so see how important and valuable my life is?

In an article published in the
New Statesman
, Ed Smith writes that busy people “are not rushing to arrive somewhere, still less to achieve anything. They are rushing because rushing is how they display how hard they work.” The cult of busyness has become “a cultural malaise.” We're all trying to convince ourselves and others that our lives are significant because we are so busy working:

In every area of public life, we demand not only that people work harder, but, crucially, that they be seen to work ever harder. This is the age of professional martyrdom.
⁷

One of my spiritual teachers once pointed out that super-busy people are actually the very ones—talented, energetic, and intelligent people—who, if they paused their nonstop spinning long enough, would realize how relatively insignificant much of what they're busy doing actually is.

Busyness for its own sake can keep us unaware of and unfocused on the more consequential things we have to do in life. And the busyness stresses us out, which often enough triggers major mental-affliction attacks. Anxiety about how many things there are to do does not help us do them better or more efficiently, let alone more wisely and calmly.

Instead of putting us in the flow, busyness just sweeps us away in the current. Instead of the mind
ful
unselfconsciousness that characterizes being in the zone, the cult of busyness instills a self-conscious
mind
less
ness that keeps us stewing about how much we have to do instead of concentrating on what we are actually doing.

•  •  •

Staying busy for the sake of busyness is not a spiritual technique for self-transcendence, happiness, or contentment. It is, rather, a recipe for agitation and turmoil, in addition to often being just another ploy to accentuate one's self-importance.

The spiritual methods for self-forgetfulness in action are quite different than this kind of hectic, chicken-with-its-head-cut-off urge to just keep busy all the time. And it's not mere inactivity that serves as the real antidote. Another cause of stress derives from worrying about all the things we should be doing that for one reason or another we are unable or unwilling to do.

The opposite of busyness is not paralysis. It's remaining active and engaged in life, but in a calm and relaxed manner. We must do what there is to do, but most of us need to get way more
unbusy
as we're doing it.

Getting unbusy
can mean cutting back on nonessential or meaningless activity in order to create a more uncluttered schedule. Reprioritizing what is really important puts what is not so essential in its proper place.

It can also mean taking more time off or simply enjoying the free time we already have without diluting it with obsessive worry, nonstop checking of email and text messages, and treating our days off and holidays as if they were just another opportunity to stay busy. We don't need to bring our work into our leisure time, and we don't need to turn our leisure time into work.
⁸

Getting unbusy can also include introducing a relaxation or meditation practice into the daily schedule—a time where you just
sit and do nothing (except grabbing some peace of mind!), which is perhaps one reason why so many of us resist it. To the busyness fanatic, meditating seems so . . .
unproductive
.

But the main thing about getting unbusy is a change in one's attitude. Our duties in life, no matter how many or even how onerous, will not seem so overwhelming if we are not overwhelmed.

Stress does not arise in reaction to some quantifiable number of things one has to do. There are plenty of people—I've personally known several—who remain constantly occupied all day long without evincing much or any anxiety. And then there are folks who have, like, two things to do in the day and get themselves all balled up:

Oh, I'm so busy! I have a doctor's appointment at 9:30, and then this afternoon, I have this other thing to do!

There's a difference between staying active—physically doing what needs to be done in the here and now—and the mental feeling of being too busy. It's not that there aren't things in our lives that need attending to. There certainly are. What's being suggested here is definitely not that we ignore our jobs, our family obligations, or any of our other responsibilities. But these duties need not be a perpetual source of unhappiness by being regarded as drudgery instead of as opportunities for
getting into the flow
.

Assuming an unbusy mindset allows for relaxed action instead of frenzied movement. Bhagwan Rajneesh (“Osho”) has drawn a distinction between “activity” and “action.” “Action is not activity,” Rajneesh argues, and “activity is not action.”

Action is when the situation demands it, you act, you respond. Activity is when the situation doesn't matter, it is not a response; y
ou are so restless within that the situation is just an excuse to be active. Action comes out of a silent mind—it is the most beautiful thing in the world. Activity comes out of a restless mind—it is the ugliest.
⁹

When the situation demands it, we act—
it's like this now
, so we do what needs to be done. The opposite of busyness is not simple indolence or immobility, and it is certainly not shirking our obligations. But the agitation and restlessness—the chronic
impulse to just do something, anything!
—that accompanies what Rajneesh labels “activity” is the source of tension and anxiety.

Indian deities and Tibetan Buddhist enlightened beings are often depicted with multiple arms to indicate the many beneficial ways they act in the world. They are portrayed as industrious—it's a big job keeping the universe going and all! But none of them is pictured with brows all furrowed in angst. They're all totally Botoxed!

Actively and skillfully engaged, but not crazy busy—this is the model for action in our own lives. Getting unbusy entails doing what there is to do efficiently and happily but without the incessant demands for frenetic activity associated with a stressed-out lifestyle that accompanies the cult of busyness.

True freedom, as we've been emphasizing, does not consist of just doing anything our untrained impulses suggest. Such an understanding of “freedom” keeps us locked in a prison of our own making. The happiness associated with spiritual goals depicted as “liberation,” “deliverance,” or “release,” requires first and foremost the end of this sort of bondage to our unrestrained mental afflictions, not the unconstrained expression of them.

So if you really must be busy, maybe it's best to get busy subduing these negative emotions that are the source of all our unhappiness. We feel more or less constantly a compelling need to change the way things presently are.

But living freely also mandates that we shake ourselves loose from the obsessive need to constantly accomplish, fix, or improve things through manic activity. We are enslaved not only by our mental afflictions but by our continuous attempts to direct future outcomes instead of fully concentrating on what we are doing in the here and now.

And so the controlling, Captain Kirk self makes yet another appearance! Reinforced by the misguided idea that we need to keep busy in order to be of value, we feel compelled to be perpetually working to alter and change things. Motivated by stressful discontentment, the good old Captain turns out to be a full-blown neurotic!

This obsession with work and achievement is another way we try to scratch the perpetual itch of dissatisfaction—in this case, the itch of always feeling like we
have to do something in order to be somebody
. It is the antithesis of the Great Itchless State.

The opposite of freedom, contentment, and perfect happiness is what the Eastern religions call
samsara
, the cyclical reproduction of suffering in our lives. And while there are many dimensions to what constitutes and causes this recurrent unhappiness, one definition of
samsara
found in the ancient texts is particularly striking for our present subject.

“Samsara,” it is said in the Ashtavakra Gita, “is nothing other than
having something that needs to be done
.”
¹⁰

The crucial Sanskrit word in the verse,
kartavya
(“having something that needs to be done”) refers to the
compulsion to act
, the niggling dissatisfaction that instigates panicky activity. The statement is rather radical and adamant, that this feeling of being
compelled
to act, and nothing other, keeps us from contentment.

At first blush, such an assertion might seem rather extreme—
But there are things I need to do! If I don't feed the kids, who will? If I don't go to work, how will I pay the bills?
There are, of course, responsibilities that we all have to fulfill. But we'll complete them a lot more efficiently and happily if we lose the feeling that we are doing so under duress. It's not the obligation to act that's the problem. It's the
neediness
that spurs activity that causes us stress.

The idea that we are unhappy owing to a
compulsion to act
actually does pretty accurately sum up our unrest. We more or less constantly feel a compelling need to change the way things presently are. We are kept dissatisfied by our perpetual itchiness—the desire for what we don't already possess and the yearning to rid ourselves of something we do have in our lives. These are the two forms of discontentment, and it is the cessation of both that brings us tranquility and peace.

It is the wish that things were
not like this now
that defines our unhappy state—what we've called the “if only” syndrome. And in response to this discontentment, we feel the compulsion to
get busy
and
start scratching
all those nagging itches in the hopes of getting what we want and getting rid of what we don't.

Jesus, among many other great spiritual teachers, advised us long ago
to just relax already
. “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear.” Constant fretting and stressing out about the future just ruins the present and, in general, spoils the limited time we have here on earth:

Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about
clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?”
¹¹

This famous passage from the Bible—its message can be put succinctly:
Don't worry, be happy!
—concludes with the following useful summary: “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today.”

We've got enough to take care of in the here and now without polluting our lives with anxiety and fear about future difficulties. There will be “worries” and “troubles” tomorrow—let's rename them “challenges,” shall we?—and when they arrive we'll need to deal with them. But the best way to prepare for tomorrow is to concentrate on today, for it is in the present that we are creating the causes that will govern our relative ability to deal with the events of the future.

There's another potential teaching on this subject that may be floating, so to speak, in your head somewhere.

Row, row, row your boat
, goes the song. We have things to do and responsibilities to fulfill, so keep rowing! The converse of keeping busy in compulsive activity is not slothful inactivity. But row your boat
gently
down the stream (and also
merrily, merrily, merrily
!) for
life is but a dream—
and one day it will end.

Flailing about with the oars in a frenzy of compulsive activity, worrying about what might be around the next bend, we forego the opportunity to leisurely enjoy the boat ride and do what we need to do in the present—gently, merrily, and in a way that doesn't take the “dream” so very, very seriously.

It is important to do what we can to ensure a pleasant future. But such preparations are best accomplished through mindful attention to the present. The future will fall into place if we create the appropriate karmic causes in the here and now. And the most effective means for doing so is neither through harried busyness nor the compulsion to fix and change things that distracts us from what there is to do right now.

The compulsion to act is motivated by a perceived need to effect an “improved” situation in the future. It's just another instance of the “if only” syndrome. We ignore the present and the opportunities it affords when we obsess too much about the future. We feel compelled to
get busy
and
start scratching
in the hopes that we'll later obtain something better than what's going on now.