Busy, Busy, Busy... Bad?

Let's face it. In today's world, we're all busy. Whether we are actually lazing in front of the TV or slaving away at homework, we always consider ourselves busy. That way, whenever an event of questionable interest arrives, we can attribute our involvement or lack thereof to our 'busy-ness'. "Oh, I'm too busy..." or "Oh, I'm not that busy." We even attribute our lack of fun or failure in commitments to being busy. To some extent, being 'busy' seems like more of a mindset than anything; we're busy when we choose to be. But when we seriously get 'too busy', some people consider it a bad thing. But is it?

For me, I'm pretty, well... 'involved' in quite a few various activities, mostly musically related. I would be considered by many as being 'overly busy.' My school day this week goes from 7:45 until after 5pm, and after school I could be in at least two different places. I'm away from home a lot, and I'm often crunched for homework time. Some people would say my life right now is 'bad for my health' and 'boring'.

But is being busy bad for you? For me, the activities I am involved in are ones that I have sought out and enrolled myself in of my own choosing without any outside influence from my parents. I enjoy what I do and wouldn't give it up unless the dire need to do so arose suddenly. Being busy becomes bad when you don't enjoy what you're involved with, would rather be doing something else, and handling the negative stress causes problems for you. If your parents forced you to get a job doing something you disliked, demanded that you work certain hours, and allocated how you spent your money, the 'busy-ness' associated with the work would probably be bad for you.

Being busy means you are actively working on accomplishing something. Busy doing homework yields results of a finished assignment, and being busy practicing music yields a better sounding song and a better musician. Accomplishment brings a sense of self-fulfillment and satisfaction. In this sense, being busy isn't bad, because it brings big benefits.

The effects of being busy are relative to how much you enjoy heavy time commitments, how important they are to you, and how passionate you are about them. For me, I love what I do, so I guess you could say I love being busy. It sure beats boredom, and the refund almost always exceeds the expenditure.