Calling out Miss Conduct, Part II
As I noted, I didn’t much agree with the criticism of my May 2nd column. I did get a letter about my May 16th column that brought me up short. In that one, a person had written in to ask if it would be possible to back out of plans that had been agreed to far in advance: “Between now and midsummer, there is exactly one weekend when my spouse and I don’t have child-tending, a crush of work, visitors, etc.,” she wrote. I As part of my reply, I said, “We all have such complicated and demanding lives nowadays, who could fail to understand your dilemma?”
I received an e-mail titled “busy, complicated lives,” that read:
No, some people do not. Some people are lonely & have time on their hands despite their best efforts to make friends, to engage in volunteer activities, etc. Please be aware of that & don’t make them all feel worse by writing as if everyone (or maybe just everyone who “matters”?) led busy fulfilled lives.
Wow. That stopped me dead in my tracks. It’s a challenge, as an advice columnist, to not make assumptions about the situation beyond the information given (e.g., not to assume that someone who writes “my husband” must be a woman). And it’s a challenge to remember that people have very different resources when it comes to money, education, time, health, a social network, and so on. I’m neither complaining nor patting myself on the back by saying this: it’s just the way it is, and I’m immensely lucky to have a job where I get to reflect on my own privileges and hone my awareness of the situations of others.
But this one — no. I’ve been working for five years now on the notion that, male or female, rich or poor, child-free or child-enhanced, educated or not, healthy or ill, everyone is “busy.” Maybe the busy-ness is wonderful and enriching: too many good friends to see, too many community activities, too many exciting work projects. Maybe it’s not: too many doctors’ appointments, too much overtime to make rent, too long a commute because you can’t afford to live where you work.
I have some thinking to do.
In the meantime, readers and friends, has my “oh we’re all so busy busy busy” rhetoric ever made you feel marginalized? What are your thoughts on this?
And my deepest thanks to the person who called me out.
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13 Responses to “Calling out Miss Conduct, Part II”
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I have encountered this in the context of my congregation. I was complaining to a fellow member about constantly being asked to do more for the congregation than I have time or energy to do, assuming that we were all having to frequently say “no” to myriad volunteer and lay leadership opportunities that we wish we had time to accept. She pointed out that she would love to be asked, and wanted to know how to get in the loop. Now my favorite thing to do when having to turn down one of these opportunities is to say, “Have you asked so-and-so? And whats-her-face? And is the new guy on your list?”
file this one under “the grass is always greener on the other side…”
I used to envy my friends who always had something to do, some place to go on the weekends where I never have anything to do or anywhere to go. Then I realized, it is the GREATEST thing in the world to have 2 whole days where you can do whatever you want! If I want to, I can do nothing but read…all day long. I can have a mini star trek marathon and not feel bad about it. Most important, I don’t need to be booked 6 weeks out like some of my friends do so I am a reliable “Plan B” if my friends other plans cancel…
Granted it’s taken me YEARS to be able to see this way.
There’s also the issue that what’s “too busy” to an introvert could be “too lonely” for an extrovert. I have a dear friend who’d be happy to go out every night, while I love, love, love my quiet time, and feel anxious when I’m scheduled for social engagements on more than three days in a row. The same schedule could be unsatisfying to one person while being overwhelming to another.
I have no solutions, unfortunately, other than (from the introvert end) to remember that clear messages are better for everybody (I wish I could apologize to everyone I jerked around as an insecure college student when I would flake on outings rather than just saying ‘no thank you’ when the idea was first floated), and that I am able to be much higher-quality company when I feel like I can really choose whether or not to accept (or issue!) an invitation, rather than always feeling obligated to accept.
Sarah: Saying no is one of the most liberating feelings in the world…no wonder 2 year olds like to say it.
As adults we often forget there is something to say other than yes…
I’m looking for a better way to say what I think of when someone offers me something good that would take away some napping/reading time I was really looking forward to, or my only Quiet Evening at Home out of four or five in a row.
What I think, and will say to the very closest of friends, is, “Thanks, but I can’t: it’s physically possible, but not humanly possible.”
We all work within definite ranges of how busy is too busy (or not busy enough.) It’s one of the pleasures of getting older that I don’t try to fool myself about this for any length of time!
Marginalized? No, mostly because I have come to recognize that (as Sarah said) “busy” is relative. Two low-key socializings (an hour at a friend’s house on Tuesday and lunch with two friends today) and I’m pretty much done for the week. The busy-talk might have bothered a younger me, though.
Carolyn, I usually just say I’m “burnt out”, and that seems to satisfy people.
The “everyone is busy” has made me feel invisible. I, like the writer, am not busy right now. I don’t have a job – I was looking, but gave up because school is going to start back up in 8 weeks – so I have a whole lot of free time. I do see friends here and there – I have only a few, and I have a lot of therapy/doctor’s appointments, but that leaves me with probably 8-10 hours most days for me to fill. After several months of this, I’ve learned to mostly enjoy it – I knit, I go on walks, I read blogs, I take naps. But I would rather be working, at least part time, and I would rather be spending more time with friends.
Eve, that’s a problem with every religious organization I’ve ever belonged to, and without going into my incredibly complicated religious biography, let’s just say that’s a lot. It seems like 5% of any congregation are involved in EVERYTHING, and 95% just show up for services. My synagogue has been making an effort to create more of a “middle class” — not everyone can or wants to be that involved, but a lot of us 95%-ers can help with programming for *one* holiday, or get involved in *one* committee, or the equivalent. I think it probably will require constant work to keep this up — voluntary organizations might naturally tend toward that 5/95 split — so it’s great that you as a member are helping to bring the less-involved into the loop!
Sarah, Carolyn, Jerry — Hmmm. When I say “busy, complicated lives,” I don’t necessarily mean extroverted lives. I’m an introvert myself, and need a fair amount of downtime. I still consider myself “busy,” because that downtime is something I need to make time for. And it seems there is always something around the house that needs tending to, or a blog post I’ve been meaning to write, or a book I want to read. But if people are taking “busy” to mean “going out to work/community/social activities every night,” I obviously need to take that into account in my writing.
emi s., thank you for sharing. I will definitely try to be more aware of this issue in the future.
Good stuff, everyone! Keep it coming!
Although I sometimes end up with lots of time on my hands, I don’t particularly feel marginalized by your assuming that people are for the most part busy with complicated lives. I think this is because I come from a family where if you had nothing to do it was assumed that you would go out and find something to do. So I have always assume that if I was not doing much right now it was because that’s what I wanted to be doing. Until I read the above it didn’t occur to me that people (at least those who are not severely depressed or otherwise disabled from doing so) who wanted to get involved didn’t just volunteer for something. Must rethink that one.
Interesting side note. Most of my life my physical surroundings have been chaotic. I always felt busy and put upon because everything I considered doing had an unstated but very present component of “and of course I really need to straighten the house as well”; there was this huge hovering wave of things that must be done that I felt I needed to schedule (but generally didn’t). Recently I got my house-keeping under control, and suddenly I’m feeling much freer, even though I’m spending more hours a day doing things (if you include keeping things straight) than I was before. So “busy” isn’t just about what you are actually doing — part of it is the pile of ‘shoulds’ loading down your to-do list.
Shulamuth, that last sentence really gets at an underlying assumption of mine, as well — that most people have a sense of unmet obligations, regardless of how they are actually spending their time. Also, the “complicated” part, I think, applies regardless of how many friends and paid or unpaid work a person has. It’s just darned hard to stay on top of current events, figure out what kind of cell phone you should get, read the fine print on your credit-card statement, keep house, eat a nutritious diet, etc. etc. etc. We live in an age of information overload and complexity.
Heh, I just experienced the opposite problem. I had my first visit with a physical therapist for my neck pain, and as part of getting my history, she asked what I do for a living. I’m a part-time (20 hours/week) office manager. Towards the end of the visit, she told me I should be doing this, this, and that, and I basically have no excuse not to since I work part-time. Wow, how presumptuous of her!
This isn’t the first time, though it’s been a long while, that someone has spoken down to me about my spare time. The other past comments have come from extroverts. One acquaintance said, after asking me what my plans were for the weekend, “Oh you’re not going out? I would go crazy stuck at home all weekend!”
There are so many things wrong with that statement.
Right now I do feel like my life is busy and fulfilled at at times overwhelming. I have a full time job, part time grad school and I frequently socialize with friends in the area. Earlier this year, however, when I was going through a very tough break up I did feel somewhat hurt by the “everyone is busy” line- not necessarily from your blog, but from all my friends and coworkers talking about how busy and overwhelmed they were all the time.
Even though I didn’t have all that much more downtime than I do now, large amounts of unstructured alone time felt painful so I was always looking for projects, activities or social engagements to fill my time. I felt very isolated when it felt like everyone had things to do except for me. I even remember feeling upset when my friends would comment about how lucky I was to have a day off.
I know I am very lucky now to have enough social activities and work to satisfy me, and to be able to cherish my downtime, and I believe that is a true blessing, and something I should not take for granted.
The statement about “even though I didn’t have much more downtime” when feeling unstructured than when feeling busy (which is certainly true for me, too) seems to support my feeling that much of this is less about what’s really going on than it is about how you view it it.
For purposes of the discussion I should confess that I am retired and have been known to tell people that doing nothing IS my job, so any busyness and complexity insanity I experience is is my own damn fault. Only it isn’t, because I felt more under pressure when I was depressed, avoiding people and not doing the dishes or the taxes than I do today, when I’m looking forward to an over-scheduled summer. This is because I see myself as having the time to do all that I need to do right now (and, it is to hoped, having the skills to actually do it on time) when I didn’t before.
On the other hand, while I do agree with Robin that almost everyone’s life is complex, just living in the here and now, and I don’t have any problem with a general statement of “I’m too busy for words”, I have also had people say “I’m too busy” meaning “I’m to busy for you right now”, which if they seem to be able to make time for other things can be pretty hurtful, in that they are saying other things matter more.