How to Define the Syndrome of Being Busy!
The term ‘being busy’ or ‘I'm very busy’ or whatever
has various levels of manifestations, connotations and concoctions. Of course,
there are people who are genuinely busy: like those having 9 to 9 jobs with
huge responsibilities and long commuting hours or the full-time housewives who
remain extremely busy with daily chores from early morning to late night or the
vendors whose ‘business’ depends on their constant presence behind their carts as
long as possible or the shopkeepers, sellers and the like.
We mentioned ‘connotations’ and ‘concoctions’ in
this regard. This has sound reasons. For many people you must try to define and
understand their ‘being busy’ and also, you must try to see through their state
of ‘very busy’ status. Whatever are your findings it’s never your business to
undermine or ridicule or cast aspersions on such people! Your only job is to
understand the state of affairs to illuminate the syndrome of being busy and
record your observations.
When you happen to call up one of your long-time
friends s/he may immediately apologize, ‘Oh you know. I considered calling you
many times in recent past, but I've been keeping extremely busy these days…!’
Here, your analysing abilities do count. You must try deciphering his/her
apparent ‘business’ in immensely objective terms. S/he could very well be ‘busy’
reclining in the arm-chair enjoying sunlight for long lazy hours or taking a
long afternoon nap or being forced out on marketing errands by the spouse or having a whirlwind time shopping around or lounging out
in the restaurants and bars or taking the pet dog out on evening shit-as-you-like
rounds. Well, not to mention the usual social media 'business'. You can record your observations as per your findings.
You may call up someone on an urgent matter, and
that someone may respond, ‘Oh I’m very busy at this moment; please don’t mind…I’ll
call you back!’ Don’t feel bad about it and never expect to get a callback. Instead,
try deciphering the concerned state of business. That someone could very well
be busy just because you may have called him/her during the hours when his/her favourite television shows or movies are slotted or that s/he may be having a
great time with some small-talking guests. Or that s/he may be making
immaculate planning to optimize attending
parties/weddings/birthdays/anniversaries coming up. Just record your findings.
Some cases do not even require efforts of deciphering;
these get so crystal clear you know! Like you see somebody meddling with the
computer—punching the keyboard, scowling at the monitor, making notes and all
that; busy apparently. You never want to disturb him/her, but the circumstances
force you ask one mandatory question that requires only ‘yes/no’ or ‘nod/shake
head’ responses from the ‘busy’ party. Therefore, you go ahead with the interruption.
And, the party responds most offensively, nastily and pugnaciously: ‘Can’t you see
I'm so busy…you fool! How dare you disturb me? You should understand that when
I'm on a particular track I cannot attend to other issues…just get that
straight…!’ You may wonder why such time-consuming quarrelsome elaborations
whereas s/he could have settled matter in mere seconds! That does for ‘businesses’
in any environment or at workplaces or homes; you record.
There is apparently no end to your possible
observations and recordings. So, we’d like to conclude with one more
observation: people in the classes we mentioned in the beginning as genuinely
busy never say they are busy when you confront them physically or on phone;
they always find time to receive or make personal calls and to greet and meet
people/friends while on the job. Unfortunately this may also propel some
reactionaries on your side decipher that these people are not actually busy,
and free most of the time! One more interesting observation could be that ones are so busy nowadays with their smartphones that they cannot even think of answering calls palpitating in that same device! In a nutshell, this syndrome of being busy is bound
to remain a perplexing human affair. However, you and I can always entertain
ourselves with our observations and findings. OK, I'm really busy now…!
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