Busyness is the Moral Equivalent Laziness and I just might be the worst offender...

Last night around 11:30, I was finishing up a book when the phrase "busyness is the moral equivalent of laziness" came back into my head.  It had appeared in a work called "Leading with a Limp" that I'd read just a few weeks back.  At the time I didn't think much of it, but something connected with me yesterday evening when I realized that, on that metric, I might be the worst offender.

At the start of the year, I came up with a list of resolutions, one of which included reading 100 books in 2011.  There was no particular rhyme or reason to it, it seemed innocent enough and, in fact, quite a worthwhile and productive goal.  It's now September 9th and I've read 87 books.  Before anyone starts saying "wow, that's great, that's a lot of books," no need to bother.  I have already congratulated myself more than enough.  I have, sadly, in fact become quite prideful about the whole thing.   Honestly, it's really ugly and embarrassing -- like some pathetic version of an athlete doing a flamboyant touchdown dance.  All about him and all about how great what he just did was...  I was in the midst of another of my self-congratulatory talks at 11:30 last night (my wife had long since gone to sleep) when I thought about how keeping myself busy with my latest self-improvement project had led to such depravity.

Briefly, here is my hamster cycle.

1. Set a goal (thoughtful or otherwise)

2. Work hard towards that goal

3. Push everything else aside to accomplish that goal

4. Accomplish the goal

5. Repeat Immediately

So how did this start and why do I keep doing it?  Some of it is certainly that I grew up in a family of "do-ers."  My family was always very good at coming up with a list of things that needed to be done and tackling that list with alacrity.  In lots of ways, this was an enormous blessing, because what I learned from osmosis quickly turned into habit, and many of the the routine organizational matters of life could be handled comfortably.

Of course, it is not my family's fault that I corrupted this routine.  It's obviously mine!  I simply can't resist the great temptation that Satan whispers in my ear "You can do it!  You can make yourself happy.  If you just get this next thing done, then you'll feel happy, content, peaceful, joyous"   My little self-improvement projects fit neatly into this lie and, of course, because I always make the projects something I can accomplish (i.e. read 100 books as opposed to "love others as yourself"), my insidious pride always finds its way into the mix.  Pretty soon, I'm feeling totally self-satisfied.  

That's pretty ugly right?  It's ugly.  The problem is that the world encourages me to do it!  We are all awarded for how much we can get done.  The more I get done, the more rewards I get.  I get money, accolades, silly little plaques with my name on them...  Before I know it, I am in total bondage to this stuff that will never satisfy me (because it falls so far short of the much larger goals to which I have been called -- to love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul and mind and to love others as myself, goals that I could NEVER accomplish on my own), but I am so frigging busy, I don't even notice.  I have so many things to do on my list that I don't have the time to stop...  heck I don't want to stop, because stopping would mean acknowledging that my flesh is too weak to do what I want it to.  I can't actually do what I should be doing.  That is a harsh message and one that no one, most of all me, wants to hear.  It is much easier for me to distract myself with endless easy and definable tasks and as a consequence feed the lie, build up false pride...  I just keep moving like some sort of possessed Tazmanian Devil.

The consequences of this in my life are many and nearly all of them are bad...  The primary victim is the most important person in my life --  my wife.  Wrapped up in my own self-salvation project, I barely make time to talk to her.  There are just too many things for me to "get to" on my list.  I am so eager to get to the next thing or plan the next thing, that I rarely take the time just to be still together.  I can see the ways in which my own anxieties about accomplishing my hamster cycle make her more anxious...  so unfair of me.

So what's my hope?  Well I am pretty sure I know what it isn't.  It is NOT me coming up with a new goal to try to accomplish.  Instead, I suspect it begins with me GIVING UP.  I need to admit that the two really big life goals 1. Loving God and 2. Loving others, I am completely incapable of accomplishing.  Since those are the only two that really matter, I need to fall on my knees and ask God for forgiveness.  Because He is loving, He has already forgiven me... my pride and righteousness, instead of being based on my own ability to accomplish silly tasks, can be founded in the grace that we ALL received.  Since we all received it, I might have some hope of sharing God's love through me...  I can stop looking at other people as getting in my way and start seeing them as God intends me too.  That can only happen though, if I give up.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer used to spend an hour a day meditating on scripture.  In the process of doing 'nothing' he came to understood more fully how utterly dependent he was on Christ.  It is a lot harder to do nothing than it looks.  Of course, given my proclivity towards busyness, I am sure I could figure out a way to turn doing 'nothing' into a concrete, accomplishable task that I could feel good about.

Pray for me.

CPP