My Anxiety Files – Keepin’ Busy

My friend grew up living next to his grandparents.  I saw them all the time and I remember one afternoon in the late 80’s when we were bullshitting around, I saw my friend’s grandmother sweeping her driveway.  It was apparently a regular thing. She kept a clean house and part of that was to sweep the leaves and dirt from their driveway.  This time, I saw her take the leaves to the end of the driveway and into the street.  Then, she started to sweep the street in front of the house. 

“Uh, dude, your grandma is sweeping the street clean?”

“Eh, she’s keeping busy.”

I remember that phrase used a reason for so many things over the course of my life. It always confused me.  I was curious about everyone’s motivations, and when someone spent time with a seemingly pointless task never made sense to me.  

(You already see my problem, right?)

To me, keeping busy meant wasting your time and wasting your time was an outright sin.  I had this notion that everyone had a clock ticking and to piss away even a moment was spitting in the face of nature and life itself. It was my struggle with the concept of ‘should’.  Now, of course, this thought process never left my brain and made it to the active stage.  I frittered away so much time in my life, to think of it all would be overwhelming.  I made too much out of time; like I needed to be doing the ‘right’ or ‘productive’ thing.  In reality, I was paralyzed by the analysis of it all.  It’s something I still deal with and truly remains my biggest regret.

To combat this, I adopted my own little mantra.  I say to myself: “Own your time”.  That’s it. It’s all I can do.  It happens to me nearly every day, especially during downtime.  Do I write?  Do I read?  What do I read? Do I watch a movie?  Can I watch something I’ve already seen?

If I truly own my time, if I deem myself as the only owner, I can make the determination and the decision is final.  There is no ‘should’. 

For those of us with anxiety or depression or have brains that like to wage war on us, keeping busy is essential.  I’m late to the game on this.  I wish I would have understood this a long time ago.  It absolutely does not matter what you are doing with that time.  If your ego is telling you that you need to do something important, I think you’d already be doing it.  There is no shame in screwing around.  One of my favorite authors of all time, Kurt Vonnegut, said: “We are here on Earth to fart around.”  If this doesn’t apply to you, then you are already doing something important and you wouldn’t take the time to read a dumb blog.  For the rest of humanity, I think keeping busy might be a good thing.  If not for achieving new heights of civilization, then for self-care.  For your health.

What’s better, worrying and ruminating about one terrible thought and regret after another until you can’t function, or playing some PlayStation 4?

I have such a difficult time on the weekends these days.  I feel like I’m still in a mode that my circumstances don’t require.  It was Dad/Survival mode.  I’m tense about money, frazzled about house stuff and work, and the pressure is on.  But those days are over.  I’m actually not in that mode anymore. I’m in a different mode that I don’t fully grasp.  It’s one where I get to dictate what I do with my time.  It's foreign and strange and I don’t fully understand it.  It’s not determined by my responsibilities to others.  It’s for me, and I’ve never really done it before.  I have the ability to keep busy in any way I choose.

Yes, I understand I figure certain things out decades later than most.  That’s why I have a blog.