“Hey, how are you?”
“Fine, but I have so much work to do.”
How many times have you heard this exchange? Presumably, too many to count. We at Middlebury are perpetually busy, treading water in a proverbially stormy (and decidedly cliché) sea of academic and extracurricular pressure. We complain frequently – so frequently that to do so has become merely customary, rather than declarative.
But I’m not sure we wholeheartedly dislike being so busy. I think we derive a twisted sense of comfort from the fact.
As New York Times contributor Tim Kreider writes, “[Busyness] is, pretty obviously, a boast disguised as a complaint. And the stock response is a kind of congratulation: ‘That’s a good problem to have,’ or ‘Better than the opposite.’ Notice it isn’t generally people pulling back-to-back shifts in the I.C.U. or commuting by bus to three minimum-wage jobs who tell you how busy they are; what those people are is not busy but tired. Exhausted. Dead on their feet.”
To a significant extent, “busyness” at Middlebury is self-imposed. The constraints placed on our leisure time are voluntarily sought. We chose to join that extra club, we chose to register for that rigorous course. We once chose to attend this very institution. I will not argue that, on some level, it isn’t difficult to fully conceptualize the amount of time and energy it takes to dig in and succeed at this college. I also will not argue against the somewhat rigid nature of the academic grind, losing precious moments of leisure and spontaneity along the way. But I will argue that, as much as we may occasionally (or regularly) resent the high expectations placed upon us at Midd, I think we are much more afraid of where we’d be without them.
Busyness is the most comfortable of complaints. What it not-so-humbly indicates is a lack of other, much more uncomfortable states of being – insecurity, loneliness, uncertainty, boredom. We have a tendency to do too much, perhaps because we are so afraid of having nothing to do. Washington Post contributor Brigid Schulte writes, “Somewhere around the end of the 20th century, busyness became not just a way of life but a badge of honor. And life, sociologists say, became an exhausting everdayathon ... People compete over being busy; it’s about showing status.”
What I will call the “busyness reflex” is exemplified by the urge to multitask. However, such productive intentions are doomed to backfire. Indeed, one study conducted at the University of London found that “constant emailing and text-messaging reduces mental capability by an average of ten points on an IQ test ... For men, it’s around three times more than the effect of smoking cannabis.” So if you’re constantly checking your Snaps while working on that problem set, take note – you’d legitimately be more functional if you were high.
The “busyness reflex” at Midd, is a more nuanced phenomenon than meets the eye. Students at this school who spend a semester taking three classes frequently describe how relieved they feel, how thoroughly they are able to immerse themselves in their coursework, how pleasantly surprised they are to discover that a genuine love of learning lay dormant, formerly smothered by sheer volume of work. The difference between three and four classes, it seems, can be likened to the difference between swimming and treading water. An age-old platitude holds true – less is (or can be) more.
So, what’s the solution? Four classes a semester is obviously the norm. The need to do more pervades. Our classes and extracurriculars will continue to demand our attention. This fact is out of our control. What’s within our control is the power to start giving one another permission to take a breath. The first step in addressing any problem, big or small, is developing awareness. We at Midd are caught, collectively, in a cycle of work-related woe. We announce how busy we are, look for confirmation that either a) others around us are equally as busy or that b) busyness is indicative of our own import. Both represent attempts to reassure ourselves that busyness is an unquestioned good. Somewhere along the way, we forget to step back and actually calm down.
Leisure time is important. Carve it out whenever possible. As Schulte writes, “Even as neuroscience is beginning to show that at our most idle, our brains are most open to inspiration and creativity ... we resist taking time off ... In the Middle Ages, this kind of frenzy – called acedia, the opposite of sloth – was one of Catholicism’s seven deadly sins.” I certainly would not attempt to belittle or undermine the value of hard work. But I would call for moments of peace, whether they consist of an hour-long walk through the organic garden, a 20 minute conversation with a friend that has nothing to do with school or 30 seconds spent staring into space. Try to remember that the opportunities provided by Midd are just that – opportunities. Don’t let busyness turn into a crutch.
