The Busiest Person Seeming To Do Nothing

an essay from the archives

for an empty vessel is only an illusion…and always ready to be filled and to overflow

My grandpa Don had a saying about people that he couldn’t figure out just what it was that they did with their time. “She’s the busiest person I know doing nothing.” So often I hear his voice saying those words as I go about my day, wondering that if he was watching me from some outer realm, if he would be saying that about me. Maybe it’s because I feel that way about myself sometimes. If someone were to watch me work throughout a day’s time, they might perceive me as the idlest person imaginable. Oh, I do busywork. I vacuum cat hair tumbleweeds daily. Wipe kitchen counters obsessively. I putter around with the best of them. But when I’m working, as in writing or painting or creating my next idea, to someone else I must seem like a pool of stagnant water.

A pool of stagnant water can be teeming with life under its calm surface though. If you happen to see me sitting on the steps that lead from my back door into my work space, cup of coffee in my hands, staring off into Neverland, you might think I’m just taking a break. Couldn’t be farther from reality. For whatever reason, my most productive days will include several episodes that seem like I’m simply zoning out. Now and again I might head out and walk the gravel path at the farm, a little under a mile and a really good way to get ideas flowing. Yes, I consider it work. I’ve even been known to curl up in my nest of a bed and close my eyes to think things through. You call it napping? Nah. It’s productive idea gathering in my world.

On the rare days when I have several places to stop or people to see, errands to accomplish, I feel the most unproductive. I get overwhelmed by “busyness” really easily. Even when I hear from a friend about a hectic schedule they have ahead of him or her, I feel a rush of anxiety. I don’t like to be “busy.” I wonder sometimes if it’s a form of claustrophobia, also something I’ve experienced for as long as I can remember. Put me in an enclosed space with no freedom to get up and leave and I get very antsy. Put me on an airplane and make me sit in the cabin for more than a few hours and panic can wash over me. So I wonder if having too many scheduled demands on me makes me start to feel trapped and closed in? Silly, isn’t it? That’s life as a responsible adult, wouldn’t you say? We all have those to deal with every day. I guess I just don’t handle it very well.

I have this recurring thought when I start to feel overwhelmed by busyness. “Life is too short to be busy.” I know, it’s the opposite of what many people feel. There is a truth to the other side of things; if we only have so many days, we may as well fill them up with everything we possibly can. It’s good logic. I get it. But in reality it wears me out to think that way. If you offered up the month of February to me, filled with weekend trips to several places, amazing things to see in every one of them, I would probably pick one and be happy that I could be home for the rest of the month, engaging in my own form of travel: reading and daydreaming. I know people that would love nothing more than to have fun activities planned from sunrise to well after dark. Not I. Oh no, not I.

“How do you find the time to do everything you do? I just don’t know how you find the time.” I hear that a lot, and from people far “busier” than I am. Well, I answer, I make sure I have time. I probably let housekeeping go more than I should. I say no to a lot of social events. I never go shopping, except quicks dashes for groceries. I don’t watch much TV. I cook a simple meal once a day and I very rarely bake or anything like that. That’s a huge chunk of expendable time right there. I have a flexible work schedule, and not everyone does. I’m lucky that way, but I’ve also created my life to be conducive to idle busyness. 

One thing that most people don’t realise is that I start my work day before five in the morning, and I’m usually still working at nine in the evening before I go to sleep. But in between those expansive work hours, I have plenty of time to walk outside and watch the deer grazing in the back of my yard, pick up a book and read a chapter, or even sit down and write in my notebooks, or browse Instagram for a little while. Some people might save those things for after work hours, by necessity or by choice. I just disperse it all throughout my waking hours. 

If I think back over my life, I was busiest when I was a young mother. I didn’t have an hour to myself very often, and I didn’t mind. But what I also did not do was over-schedule my kids into several activities. My rule was “pick one thing you want to do.” Both of my children tried many different things, but settled on one or two that seemed to flow throughout their teenaged years. For my son, it was music; for my daughter it was ballet. This was ideal for me, because I wasn’t forced to be a million places each week, and we had plenty of home time, where I encouraged boredom as the impetus to use their imaginations. I have thought that maybe I should have encouraged them to do more, try more. I now see parts of my philosophy as a bit selfish; I didn’t want to be running all over the universe. Having plenty of unscheduled time did make allowances for their childhood to last a little bit longer. I can’t regret it, but I do question it now and then. I suppose I am just a firm believer in having time to germinate and gestate without always having something to do. 

What I find fascinating is that I do accomplish things. A lot of things. My mosey-meandering style is what works for me. But what about friends who always seem to have a list going, who seem to have something that needs to be done from sun up to sleep? What really amazes me is the people who work full-time jobs in a corporate setting, are involved in many activities and goings on around town, and still have time for creative pursuits. That seems like witchcraft. If I try to imagine my own life that way I feel paralysed. I wouldn’t even know where to begin. Where would I find time for daydreaming? How would ideas be fertilised and grow into something worthwhile? It amazes me how different people go about things and I get down on myself for not having that kind of stamina or even desire (perhaps even the ability) to work that way—but then, I remember how much I really do juggle and accomplish, a whole heck of a lot, and that you will rarely find me, almost never, just doing nothing. Daydreaming is something in my line of work, after all. I am not a couch sloth by any means, but maybe I’m just slow. A soft little sloth who makes things happen in her own kind of time. I should take comfort in that. Maybe my grandfather would be thrilled to see all that I have achieved. It might not be as tangible or profitable as the things a busier, more scheduled person might accomplish, but it certainly isn’t a waste of time.

Maybe that’s my new modus operandi: the busiest person seeming to do nothing.

Now tell me about you. What would my grandpa say about you?