Breaking the habit of being busy
If someone is writing a book about my life, they will call me punctual in the character description. Being on time for everything is something that happens naturally for me. I have always thought that I have a little automatic clock inside of me that rings right on time to remind me to start doing my assignments or to go out of the house at just the right moment so my friends won’t end up waiting for me.
Since I got into university, this automatic clock has been very useful because my everyday life consists of me running around attending classes, club meetings, doing academic work, and keeping up with friends. All this makes me feel like I am running a never-ending marathon and for some time, I enjoyed it.
I built the habit of being constantly busy and even on weekends and holidays, I felt like I must work on something for school or learn something useful because otherwise, I would get anxious I am not doing enough with my time. Resting and being mindful were never on the list. I have been doing this routine for four semesters now but just recently, I realized that there is something about this speed and restlessness that successfully separates us from what we cherish.
Seeing people around me build similar habits and live their lives in a constant race with time tells me that we live in a culture where we rarely stop to sit still in the present moment. For me, this race with time leads to the feeling of being stuck in a routine and never being satisfied with the work I have done. Completing tasks after tasks, setting a goal after a goal, and jumping into the next thing without even reflecting on what is going on. I realized I never feel present in anything I do because I am always somewhere else — on to the next daily task or anxiously thinking about what is going to happen in the future.
When the Covid-19 outbreak started, the whole world had to change plans, routines, schedules, and just stay at home. In the beginning, it felt like the end of the world to me. Being pulled out of a dynamic lifestyle and put between the four walls of my room felt like a nightmare and time was the absolute enemy. However, as a few weeks went by, I noticed two things: I was generally calmer and I had lost the sense of what day of the week it was exactly.
Self-isolation gave me more time to meditate and I had no plans to be anxious about. The best thing I could do was to stay in the present moment. Confinement is both a challenge and an opportunity for everyone to be more mindful and to adopt the habit of just pausing and taking the time to just be. About three weeks after the beginning of my self-isolation, a friend of mine recommended a book called ‘’Radical Compassion’’ by Tara Brach. The book is about handling the daily anxieties that make people go into a ‘’trance’’ and making the best of time while also being fully present.
There is a passage from the book that called ‘’The U-turn to presence’’ which is a simple exercise that I found very helpful when trying to stay present: “We are taking a U-turn whenever we shift our attention from an outward fixation — another person, our thoughts, or our emotionally driven stories about what’s going on — to the real, living experience in our body. It’s like being at a scary movie where we’re totally gripped by the story on the screen and then suddenly become aware: Okay, it’s just a movie. I’m watching it with hundreds of other people. I can feel the seat under me, feel myself breathing. And we’re back again, aware of our own presence, grounded in our real life.’’
Reading this book during social-isolation made me realize I often live in a trance somewhere between the future and the past. I am slowly learning that wanting to use my time efficiently is okay as long as I take time to pause allow myself to break the habit of being busy from time to time.
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Emanuela Kerencheva is a Sophomore Student at the American University in Bulgaria majoring in Journalism and Mass Communications. She is now learning to take breaks and the quarantine period does not seem so bad anymore.
