I’m reading an article that a friend shared with me. I’m not done yet but there are several thoughts running through my head as I read it.
I hope that I won’t regularly cop out on writing substantive articles and instead simply repeat what others have said. Nevertheless:
- Do people not recognize merit anymore? Can good no longer speak for itself? Must it be dressed up for one to recognize it?
- The Scourge of business. I once heard a wry statement about it by (whom I consider because of this) a wise man by the name of Hugh McKay:
Busyness has become the new badge of honor — if you’re not busy you must be dead. Or an a scrapheap. If you’re not busy you must have fallen victim to the demon drink or gone to the dogs. Not busy? Good grief. What a Loser.
If we all stay busy, if we cling to each other in this desperate dizzy dance, none of us will notice what’s actually happening to us. And we’ll all be dead before we realize it.
Or as one Washington Post article puts it,
Early 1900’s British philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell once proposed a four-hour day, his point being that with a bit of reorganization, this would guarantee enough work for everyone, and also allow us to turn our minds to the wiser use of leisure and the enrichment of our lives
His observation, way back in 1935, was that people were working such long hours that they were too tired to enjoy active and civilizing leisure pursuits, so they fell into passive forms of recreation – going to the cinema, watching sport, listening to other people play music.
Nothing much has changed, huh – except arguably the mediums-nowadays. Today it’s all about home cinema-huge flat screen televisions; pay TV, computers, playstation and ipods. Independent cinemas like The Valhalla, Chaveul and Footbridge theaters have all recently closed.
It should also be noted that this notion of repeated in Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life in his Chapters about what true fellowship looks like. One of the biggest killers of true fellowship is lack of openness. In Ortberg’s The Life You’ve Always Wanted, the character of hurrying kills our love for each other and reduces us into these mindless automatons. Then we wake up one and realize that we’ve done nothing but scurry around. Most people call it a midlife crisis. I am yet still shy of 20 and I think I’ve had one of those already. Ah well. My physics professor has always said,
There are 2 kinds of people in the world: Idiots who know they’re idiots and bigger ones who don’t
At least I’m aware of the presence of a problem. That’s a start. Take a moment to consider the things that have been lost upon you because of your rush. It’s not to say doing things unbearably slowly is better, but to simply sweep everything else out of the way without giving it a glance is something sad indeed. Take a moment to consider the things that you have missed in your hurry. At least stop and take a look around. You might be surprised what meaning there is in not hurrying
For His Glory,
Tim
3 Comments
February 26, 2008 at 4:10 am
Well, busyness is essentially a manifestation of selfishness. Our busyness sounds something like: “I am busy running around building my resume so that I can have a great life later on, and going to all these places to meet people is for my benefit and my enjoyment…” I, I, I. Me, me, me. If we can be busy but revolve that busyness around others, it would make for a more Godly existence. =)
February 26, 2008 at 9:59 pm
this is true that the busyness here that I am referring to is that which wraps one in oneself so complete that one is unwilling and unable to recoginize the needs of others. However, that is not to say that to wrap one’s attention around the needs of a different person (another person other than self) is better.
In fact, many times, with that method we simply project what we *think* the other person needs with our own.
Fellowship involves a sort of openess which is acheived in part by having the schedule a bit empty so that people can share what they need as well. It implis that if we are to be *open* to helping others and loving others, we must be less full of doing (either things for “self” or for “others”) and more about being open and looking for ways to serve.
March 6, 2008 at 9:54 am
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