Let’s disrupt the busy and urgent trap
5 recommendations to edit out this month’s burdens
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My dear friend Jill Krause (who writes
) posted this reminder on Instagram on the first day of December:“Do not buy into the false sense of urgency for the last month of the year. Time is a construct. Your well-being is for real. Live for moments as they come, not as you create them.”
This is, indeed, a smart reminder and made me think about the human tendency to orient towards chaos; to embrace urgency and gravitate towards stimuli that trigger the stress response.
It makes sense. Chaos focuses our attention; stress makes us feel. These things also give us something to talk about—or at the very least, an easy way to connect.
Many years ago, I was thinking about the universality of the “busy” response. I’m pretty sure everyone living on the grid has been on both sides of this default communication response. When someone asks you how you’re doing, or you ask how they are, the immediate response often involves the word “BUSY”—sometimes further colored by additions such as, “I’m barely hanging on,” “I’m overwhelmed,” and “I hate everyone.”
The busy response may be representative of the situation at hand, and it has also become something of a reflexive response that tracks with busyness being a culturally accepted state of being and badge of honor in the United States. And also, for those who struggle with emotional fluency, identifying as busy is easier than getting into feelings. And then toss on a layer of introversion and that quick, “I’m so busy! How are you?” response may very well get you out of surface level chit chat that is draining compared to deeper conversations.
Ask me how I know!
Anyhow, the thing that began to trouble me about the busy response was how I fell into its default usage, even when I didn’t feel overwhelmed or like I hated everyone. And so, former experimental psychologist that I am, I couldn’t help but challenge myself towards authenticity—which meant sometimes pulling on my emotional fluency and extroversion underpants—and make some observations.
In passing conversations, when someone asked me how I was doing, I paused to disrupt my busy response, and answered authentically depending on where I was at in the moment. Now, I didn’t dump on people—think, passing school drop-off or water cooler level conversation. And it was fascinating to see that people were often confused when I answered with something like, “I’m fantastic. Things are going really well!” versus a response of a negative valence.
As a society, are we really that uncomfortable with positive valence?
Particularly after the challenges of the last few years, I feel even deeper how important it is to stay tuned to what is true, especially the tiny good things which at times have served as an actual life raft. Yes, there is a staggering amount of horrible shit going on in this country and in this world and I am by no means turning a blind eye to that, and I believe that we have the capacity to deal with hard times and also do things a different way in service of our well being. I don’t want to minimize the good and I don’t want to be busy for the sake of cultural patterns.
And so, at this time of year, I encourage you not to fall into the default busy trap and the false sense of urgency trap that Jill mentioned. Because listen, we have enough actual challenging shit to deal with in life without creating more unnecessarily challenging shit for ourselves. Here are some recommendations for how you might work on editing out burdens this month.
1. Edit your gift list and then edit it again
For the holidays, I’m keeping things minimal in terms of tangibles, and otherwise focusing on consumable gifts (coffee, handmade soaps, chocolate, and baked goods are among my favorites) and time together. Or if you are my Mom, you will receive cash because Koreans love the flat envelope gift.
2. Review (and edit) your social plans
If your plans are feeling overwhelming on paper, the likelihood is that they will feel even more overwhelming in real life. Edit accordingly.
3. Identify one or two rituals that are meaningful to you and make them happen
For me, cookie baking with my kids and then boxing up cookies to share with neighbors is one of my favorite December rituals. It’s like a quality time + community strengthening + beloved hobby three-fer. Yesterday morning I delighted in delaying the start to my work day to look for a new recipe or two to add to this year’s cookie plan via this roundup from King Arthur Baking Company. Last night after conferring with Violet, we landed on a roster of seven cookies. I feel like I am LIVING.
Schedule a meet up with one of your “easy” relationship people
The holidays always stir up issues in relationships; all the better reason to go for a walk or coffee with someone where the vibe is easy and mutual and loving. Here’s a quick 4-step relationship exercise I drew up a couple of years back for an Edit Your Life episode.
5. Free yourself of the mindset of trying to please everyone because it is an actual impossible task
You are not responsible for everyone else’s holiday magic or happiness. The wonderful KC Davis and I talk more about this in this episode on Gratitude in the Hard Seasons.
I would love to hear how you disrupt holiday urgency and chaos!
For a few years, I tried to follow the advice of starting early preparing for the holidays, things like "have all your gifts purchased by December 1." And it was a horrible fit for my temperament. I am a fairly present-minded person and it just seemed to add stress in the fall when I wanted to be enjoying the changing leaves, admiring pumpkins, etc. Now, I basically don't even think much about the holidays until after Thanksgiving and even then I give myself time to slowly sink into the season. I try to prioritize a few things that bring joy and then enjoy the experiences that come our way. Our schedule actually lightens up a lot in December (fall sports are over, Cub Scouts takes a break, etc.) so it's really nice having more quiet evenings during the week and being able to sleep more on the weekends.