The new currency of busyness
Material goods: The souped up car, the rolex, the designer shirts, branded minutae etc. All quite affordable and not quite unreachable in this age of large disposable incomes of young professionals in the 22-35 age bracket. Generation celebrity has us flooded constantly with targeted images of the latest, greatest and trendiest at (seemingly) the best price point. This on the one hand will grab the attention of the mindless who want, and on the other to desensitize people as to the 'exclusivity' of an item. So what is it then that people use to differentiate themselves from their rat racing peers, when the large majoriy of material possessions are ho-hum (s/he saved up for it, got a good deal, knew someone who knew someone - many methods of aquisition)?.
Trying to catch up with friends nowadays involves about 5 phone calls, and it is for all intents and purposes, like a sales process. There is the initial guaging of interest (call 1) - 'Lets meet up sometime' 'Yea that would be great'. Next is the inevitable gap in communicae, lets label the absence of a call an event in itself (call 2). Following this would be facebook message (call 3) with a suggestion of time/day, then the renegotiation of said time/day (call 4) after which both members will check their outlook calendars. Finally there is the close/sell (call 5), which is the confirmation call. Both/all parties will then meet up at the specified place 10 mins late and spend a bit of introductory time explaining how busy they all were.
We all fill up our proverbial plates with activities which, were we to be of any decent level in ALL of them, would require significantly more than the 24 hours per day we have been granted by the great nothing (insert your preferred deity) and those responsible for calendar invention (who's more powerful?). Granted none of us should feel terribly guilty about this as we are of the age where forming a solid sense of self is paramount - lets open ourselves up to every opportunity given. However, the downside is that being busy has been equated to success. If money talks, busy-ness is the tone of superiorty behind the speech, the swagger in M.Jagger.
The confound? success is neither tethered to nor completely disconnected from being busy, but could in fact be a function of what one is busy doing, and importantly the person themselves. Bill Gates has his days scheduled in 15 minute increments for the next 3 years. Warren Buffett turns up to work every morning and places a blank page of paper on his desk, and this is his diary for today. Need I describe in another long winded sentence what this implies.
Tell me you're busy and I wont immediately conclude you're on the path to happiness, so we might have to probe further. Maybe we should have coffee to discuss that. But I'm only free between 6 and 7pm on Thursday, how's does that work for you?
