Written by Micah Gill<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why are we so busy? Most people in contemporary U.S. society, especially college students, feel busy (research it if you don\u2019t believe me). Our schedule quickly fills when we try to split our time between academics, extracurriculars, work, relationships and maintaining our physical, mental and spiritual health, not to mention the time spent planning for the future and trying to serve those around us. It\u2019s no surprise that nowadays when we ask people how they\u2019re doing, \u201cBusy!\u201d is often a go-to response. Yet, as Dr. Monte Cox likes to point out, this common answer is rarely a solemn admittance of an oversaturated schedule, but rather a point of pride.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why are we proud of our busyness? We have not always prided ourselves on being a society of resume boosters, speed walkers, multitaskers, LinkedIn curators and coffee guzzlers. For the roughly 250 years leading up to the mid-20th century, we were in what French historian Michel Foucault called a \u201cdisciplinary society,\u201d which imposed society\u2019s values and expectations on its people by force and coerced obedience. Outside forces compelled and threatened people to fall in line and to make \u201cprogress.\u201d Though there are some remnants of disciplinary society still intact today, Byung-Chul Han, a South Korean philosopher, explains how today\u2019s society has shifted: \u201cTwenty-first-century society is no longer a disciplinary society, but rather an achievement society,\u201d he writes in his book \u201cThe Burnout Society.\u201d If you don\u2019t believe him, note the change in today\u2019s characteristic institutions from the past: \u201cToday\u2019s society is no longer Foucault\u2019s disciplinary world of hospitals, madhouses, prisons, barracks and factories. It has long been replaced by another regime, namely a society of fitness studios, office towers, banks, airports, shopping malls and genetic laboratories . . . prohibitions, commandments and the law are replaced by projects, initiatives and motivation.\u201d Society no longer forces us to be productive members; we now force ourselves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why are we so busy? Perhaps a better question is, \u201cWhy do we force ourselves to be so busy?\u201d Primarily, we feel that we must be busy. We compel ourselves to busyness because, in our achievement society, busyness, productivity and \u201cexcellence,\u201d are our standards of importance. If we see our lives as unimportant without hard work, we will naturally enslave ourselves to \u201cthe grind.\u201d Han puts it similarly: \u201cThe reaction to a life that has become bare and radically fleeting occurs as hyperactivity, hysterical work and production.\u201d We members of achievement society have starved our lives of their intrinsic value and have tried and failed to create a new virtue called \u201cefficiency\u201d to make up for it. Really, efficiency is a vice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When we hyperactively achieve to make ourselves important and valuable, we show that we do not trust the meaning ascribed to our lives by the Gospel. Our distrust of the Gospel detaches us from \u201cbeing\u201d characterized by peace, simplicity and gratitude, and instead imprisons us into a false \u201cbecoming,\u201d characterized by strain, complexity, burnout and discontentment. How far is this from Jesus\u2019 example? Nowadays, we are too busy to break away and pray for hours like Jesus made his common practice. We are too busy to stop and show love to others by listening to them, like Jesus did for the woman at the well. How many hours did Jesus spend pouring into the lives of his disciples? It seems strange to even imagine Jesus thinking about sacrificing his time because his entire purpose on earth was \u201cnot to be served but to serve\u201d (Mt. 20:28). What if we thought about our lives the same way? Did Jesus frantically speed-walk around Galilee? Somehow, I don\u2019t think so. As Dr. Ross Cochran often says, \u201cHurry and love are fundamentally incompatible.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those of you who know me may be surprised that I am writing this article. The reality is that I am an imprisoned member of an achievement society, just now waking up to see the chains which bind me to \u201cthe grind.\u201d I will admit that we are sometimes (but not as often as we think) called to busyness. This is a dangerous calling, though, because busyness, while not bad, makes it harder to be good. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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