Are you a perfectionist? Me too. At least I was until I grasped that humans just aren’t built for perfection. We mess up, fall down, fail. The average person farts 14 times/day. The secret is to, “Do your best & forget the rest.” Thanks to fitness guru Tony Horton for this great advice. Evaluate your time, energy, & priorities and get stuff done the best you can each time.
In the dictionary the word busyness means, “the quality or condition of being busy.” Duh, Corey. Wait for it. There is a secondary definition as well. This is the one that’s more appropriate for how we spend much of our time these days.
Uh-oh! That hits pretty close to home doesn’t it? This secondary definition is exactly what I see every day. We are extremely busy, but our busyness pertains to some relatively meaningless stuff – especially in the big scheme of life. At the same time, we feel more emptiness and loneliness than we should. Here is how this happens . . .
Socrates warned, “Beware the barrenness of an overly busy life.” That is a powerful warning indeed. We fill our lives so full. It’s our quest to do more, be everywhere, plug in to everything, multi-task. The problem is that we humans aren’t so good at being omnipresent. It’s hard to be really good at anything using this approach. Expertise takes time and attention. And, it’s impossible to have really strong friendships when your calendar is chock-full. Friendships require quality time and not a calendar slot.
The worst part is that we fill our lives up and they still feel barren. Socrates was right. Ever been there? I have. I have been the loneliest at the times when I didn’t have enough time to do anything. This loneliness caused me stress and a loss of happiness. So, I did the opposite of what I was supposed to do and made myself busier and busier. Of course, that made it worse.
With all this in mind, here’s my advice. Reducing stress and being authentically happy is like having a garden where stuff actually grows. You surely know that if you have a garden full of weeds nothing will grow. But, it’s also true that a garden too full of flowers won’t grow well either. Your garden needs space to breathe in order to flourish. Just like we do. It’s time for each of us to conduct a good weeding out of our lives. Hence, our second Stress Tip: Weed Out Your Life.
My church is doing a series on this topic as it relates to faith. I decided to borrow it because it’s perfect for our character development journey. Here’s the point. We do our best to show the world one side of us – the best side possible. This is what I call our “Job Interview Persona.” In a job interview, we all come off as poised, smart, patient, kind, loyal, dependable. We put our best face forward because we want the job. You get the picture. We are able to pull this off because job interviews are short. We’re only there for a brief moment. Most people can hold their breath underwater for a brief moment too.
But, when life gets tough or we’re just around our families, a different side resurfaces. This persona tends to be more authentic and also tends to display our character flaws more transparently. These are our true colors, our authentic self. The idea is to have your true colors echo the persona you show the world. This moral consistency will pay huge benefits. Think about it . . . if you’re just one (high character) person, you don’t have to fake it anymore. Isn’t that refreshing?
So . . . spend some time this week answering these questions. Click on each one for a cool quote and some more info. Enjoy!
My wife and I love to go on exotic vacations and watch the sunsets. Sometimes, that’s the main reason we pick a destination. It’s stunning to watch the sun go down over the Pacific Ocean in Hawaii, over Catalina Island in Southern California, over the Gulf of Mexico in Key West, or over Sydney Harbor in Australia. In many of these exotic places, the locals have sunset celebrations where everyone gathers and watches the main event in awe, together. It’s a big party and they do it every evening. For some reason, it never gets old to these locals. These also tend to be the places where people seem less stressed than the rest of the world. Perhaps this nightly celebration helps add some peace to a hectic life? Of course it does.
The funny thing is, the sun still sets where we live . . . every night! And, no one is stopping us from watching it . . . every night. How come it takes a vacation for us to find the time and patience to make that happen? That needs to change. And, it has for me.
A Professor of Business Ethics and Legal Studies at the University of Denver, Corey Ciocchetti is one of the University’s most popular and highest-rated professors. Corey joined DU after graduating with a law degree from Duke University School of Law, a Masters degree in Religious Studies and two Bachelors degrees in Finance and Economics—summa cum laude—from the University of Denver.