We live in a busy world. In many ways, busy has become the norm. When you ask someone “how are you?”, how often does their reply contain some reference to being busy? Probably so often that we’ve stopped noticing. In many parts of society there seems to be a cultural expectation that we should be busy. One writer observes that this is so prevalent that “to not be busy is seen as strange or unproductive.” And it’s easy to buy into that, even unconsciously. We feel good when we get to the end of a long to-do list. Our natural instinct often is to commend or compliment a busy person, someone who’s always got something lined up on their to-do list. And this isn’t meant to knock any particular activity, or to condemn anyone who is busy. Many of the things we do are necessary and good things.
However, I was hugely struck by something in a sermon I heard recently. The preacher asked the question “Is there slack in your life. Have you got space in your life to be able to reach out to other people?” He told the story of an experiment carried out by psychologists who were looking into factors which make it more likely that people will stop and help someone else. As the preacher noted, the experiment was done in the 1960s, and probably wouldn’t pass the research ethics panel if it was proposed today, but even with that caveat, what it highlighted really startled me. In the experiment, a group of trainee vicars (!) were set the task of going to speak at a meeting in a location which was about 15 minutes’ walk away. Half the group was told that they had plenty of time and were expected there in about 45 minutes. The other half were told that they were pretty much already late and would really have to hustle to get there. Along the route the trainees would walk they placed an actor who pretended to have a heart attack as the trainee approached.
In the group who were told they were late, only one in ten of them stopped to help the person having a heart attack.
In the group who were told they had time, that number rose to six in ten. A sixfold increase in the number who stopped to help someone who could be dying, just because they felt they had more time. But even in that second group, four out of ten still didn’t stop. We don’t know for sure, but it seems reasonable to assume that having a task to perform – being busy – was at least part of the reason that those four in ten still didn’t stop.
I always rationalise to myself that it’s alright for me to be busy because, as long as I feel like I’m making enough time for my family, then the impact of the busyness is just on me. If I’m ok with running round from dawn to dusk like my hair’s on fire, then that’s then end of it, right? But this sermon really challenged me. If we are busy all the time, what do we miss? What gets drowned out by the noise? What do I walk past, justifying it because I have somewhere to be? Do I see the lonely neighbour who just needs someone to talk to, the colleague who’s really struggling at home? The everyday situations which desperately need someone to reach out with God’s grace.
If I’m honest, I tend to feel quite proud of how busy I am – I wear it like a badge of honour. So I’m not sure I have the answer. In fact I know I don’t. My natural inclination is to be task-focused, and combined with a bit of an all-or-nothing approach to life this tends to result in a cycle of being intensely busy and then collapsing in a ‘I need a break’ heap for a couple of days, before starting all over again. It gets things done, but it’s not terribly balanced. And it definitely doesn’t have slack or useful space.
For me, I think perhaps the first step is to work on allowing myself to have free time. Life isn’t the Olympics of Busyness. There is no gold medal for the longest To Do list. Changing how we respond to busyness in others might be a good thing too – commiserate but don’t congratulate. Think of busyness like a cold: Everyone’s probably going to catch it occasionally, but you don’t want it all the time. When you encounter someone who’s caught it, see if you can help.