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If you're shopping on your smartphone while you're sitting on the toilet, you're too busy.
To get quiet, you could spend an unplugged weekend in total silence at a monastery, but that isn't realistic for most. Instead, carve out small windows of time to contemplate and reflect on where you've been and where you want to be. This time can also serve as a reset, where you close the books on details that have been weighing on you and start anew. Next, think about these questions, knowing that your answers may change over time:
1. Who are you? What defines you?
2. What is happening inside you?
3. What drives you?
4. What are your passions?
5. What are some things you can do today to get clear?
These five questions can help you be more present and aware of what direction your life is taking. Sometimes when you get quiet, you may not like what you see. Think of a lake where the wind has whipped up the waves, and you can't see below the surface. When it's calm and quiet, you can often see all the way to bottom – or at least see the fish swimming below the surface. You might spot tires and refuse on the bottom – and may not be pleased with what you see. That's okay. This is the first step in getting clarity. It takes time and commitment to truly get quiet, and once you do, you might be shocked at what you discover about yourself. Start by taking 10 minutes for self-reflection and see what you discover.
It Keeps Getting Faster and Faster
Technology is accelerating so fast that we don't have time to get clear. Consider this:
• It took radio 38 years to reach 50 million listeners.
• It took television 13 years to reach 50 million viewers.
• It took the Internet four years to reach 50 million users.
• It took Facebook one year to reach 50 million users.
• And it took smartphone apps just nine months to reach 50 million users.
It looks like instant gratification isn't fast enough anymore.
Our Obsession with Busyness
At what point did our obsession with busyness become a badge of honor? We seem to be consumed with cramming more in a day, in an hour, and in a minute than ever before. We thought technology would help us manage our busyness, but in reality, the opposite has transpired. The more time-saving gadgets and applications we have, the more we try to do. It seems counterintuitive, but the more time-saving technology we have, the less time we have.
Because of this – and many other things – we don't have any time to reflect or think about how we're living our lives. When we do take time to get quiet, we uncover the things in life that intrigue and inspire us, but more important, we learn to tune out some of the noise in our lives that doesn't matter. We learn to say yes to what is important and no to what is not.
Whenever I think about how busy we can get, I recall an amusing story about one of my brother's friends named Tom, who worked in the warehouse for a distribution company. He was a slight fellow who reminded everyone of Woody Allen.
Tom was eventually laid off from his job. My brother, Mark, would run into him from time to time and ask, “Hey, Tom, how are you doing?”
Tom had gone to work for a competitor, and he would say, “Oh, man, Mark. Let me tell you…we are busy! Oh, how we are busy!”
These exchanges went on for a year or so:
“Tom, how are you doing?”“
Oh, Mark, man, are we busy!”
This went on until one time Tom said, “We're so busy that if we get any busier, they're going to have to move me to full time!”
Tom was busy all right. He was like many who've built barriers in their minds of what they can and cannot do. In Tom's mind, his definition of being busy was working part time.
Do you know people who can't stop talking about how busy they are? When you inquire why they're so busy, they usually respond with something like, “Well, I have to go to the store to pick up a few things, and then I have things to do around the house. Yes, it's going to be a very busy day,” which prompted me to come up with a great title for my next book: When You Have Nothing to Do, It's Hard to Get It All Done.
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