Busy Bee

Are you a bee or a mosquito?

“It’s not so much how busy you are, but why you’re busy. The bee is praised; the mosquito is swatted.” – Marie O’Conner

Ever noticed that we are all so busy, busy, busy. Running from here to there, just busy!  The million dollar question is WHAT are we busy doing? and WHY are we so busy?

Let’s take a minute to look at what busy really means to us. What are the quality of things that we are exchanging TIME being busy doing? What emotion does being busy conjure up in us? What happens if we remove some of these things from our plate? Would we be relieved? More stressed? Anxious because no one can do it as good as we can?

Busy is a great way to escape emotions, its an easy way to solidify our self-worth. That’s the mosquito in us. We go about our day doing things to prove we’re worthy, we’re the only ones who can do it and we’re filling every minute, of the day and feeling drained, and complaining that we don’t have enough “time” for the things that really move our soul. Yet, we do the same thing day in day out.

Urgent things have a way of crowding our focus.  There is a momentary sense of euphoria from getting things done, almost like a chemical dependency but it can have terrible long-term consequences because you may be into efficiency, rather than effectiveness, and you may never provide the leadership for your life because you’re always so hurried being busy.

Busy isn’t a bad thing, it can be a form of productivity and a form of dedication to our passion. This is the bee is us.

Take note of what busy means in your life – are the things that you are busying yourself with energizing or draining? This is a good indication of which role you are playing – that of the mosquito or the bee.

Bringing awareness into our day to day lives is the only way that we can really live our best life. The good news is that the choice is always ours. Busy bee or busy mosquito?