“Oh, I am just so busy!””I know, me too! I just have soooo much going on right now, it’s crazy!”
Sound familiar?
I’ve heard phrases like these many times within the past three years. I’ve even been guilty of using them myself. What I’ve been wondering, though, is exactly what good this complaining does.
It surely can’t help alleviate your stress. In fact, I think it can only make it worse.
It might be nice to commiserate with someone so you can find a temporary release. Soon enough, though, you’re going to identify yourself as a busy, stressed person.
And as you wear your stress like a badge on your sleeve, the self-created hell in which you live (and which you and your friends continually reaffirm) will cause your stress to spiral out of control.
No matter how busy you are, no matter how many things you have scheduled, you can be calm and relaxed.
Pardon me if I sound like I’m channeling Tony Robbins, but even if you can’t control what happens to you, you should always be able to decide how you are going to react to things that happen in everyday life.
You chose your schedule. Even if you can’t accept and deal with it, it is still your responsibility. Now, you could say that you are following a career path and in order to get into the best graduate school you absolutely must do all of the things you have scheduled yourself into. You have no choice!
Isn’t it worth it, though, to be able to do what you really want to do? You should be thankful that you are able to go to college at all.
I suppose talking about how busy you are helps make conversation when there’s nothing else to talk about. But there are so many more worthwhile things to talk about that it doesn’t seem worth it.
At least you (probably) won’t stress yourself when talking about the weather, or “the game,” or the millions of topics that don’t involve stress.
Besides… I’m busier than all of you.