Why Busyness Is Actually Modern Laziness
क्यों व्यस्तता वास्तव में आधुनिक आलस्य है- रसमस होउगार्ड और जैकलीन कार्टर (२० मार्च, २०१९)
क्रिया व्यसन आलस्य का एक उन्नत प्रकार है। यह हमें कार्यों के साथ व्यस्त रखता है। जितना व्यस्त हम खुद को रखते हैं, उतना ही हम जीवन और मृत्यु के सवालों से जूझने से बचते रहते हैं। जैसे हम अपने आप को कार्यों में लगाए रखते हैं, वो महत्वपूर्ण हों या नहीं, हम जीवन का सामना करने से बचते हैं। हम उन मुद्दों से एक सुरक्षित और आरामदायक दूरी रखते हैं, जिनका सामना करना कभी-कभी मुश्किल होता है। क्या हमने सही करियर चुना है? क्या हम अपने बच्चों के साथ पूरी तरह मौजूद हैं? क्या हमारा जीवन उद्देश्यपूर्ण है?
अपनी सभी गतिविधियों से हमारा मानना है कि हम किसी बड़ी चीज के करीब पहुंचते हैं। हम शायद नहीं जानते कि यह क्या है, लेकिन हम इस पर काम करते रहते हैं। यह एक सीढ़ी पर जितना तेज़ हम चढ़ सकें उतना तेज़ चढ़ने जैसा है, इस आशा में कि हम सबसे ऊपर पहुंच जाएं। और एक दिन हम वहाँ पहुँचते हैं। हम नौकरी में पदोन्नति या नए अधिग्रहित घर के रूप में ऊपर पहुंच जाते हैं। लेकिन सीढ़ी के टॉप पर पहुंचने का क्या फायदा है, केवल ऊपर पहुंच कर यह एहसास करने के लिए कि सीढ़ी गलत दीवार के साथ लगी हुई थी।
एक समय, दलाई लामा शहर में आ रहे थे। उन्हें देखने के लिए 10,000 से अधिक लोग एक साथ इकट्ठे हो रहे थे। 500 से अधिक स्वयंसेवकों, दर्जनों सुरक्षा सम्बंधित लोगों और पत्रकारों के जनसमूह को समन्वित किया जाना था। इस सबके पीछे करीब ७० वर्षीय, एक नाटे इन्सान, लाखा थे जो दलाई लामा के एक पुराने दोस्त और अध्ययन सखा थे। जब मैंने उनसे पूछा, " लाखा, क्या आप व्यस्त हैं?" वो मेरी ओर मुड़े, मुझे शांति से देखा और कहा, "बहुत सारी गतिविधि है, लेकिन मैं व्यस्त नहीं हूं।" उनकी उपस्थिति उनके शब्दों की तुलना में अधिक ज़ोर से बोली। लाखा कई सामयिक सीमाओं और विवरणों के साथ एक विशाल परियोजना की देखरेख कर रहे थे । बहुत कुछ चल रहा था, लेकिन वह उनपर हावी नहीं हो रहा था। वे व्यस्त नहीं थे।
उस दिन मुझे स्पष्ट महसूस हुआ कि व्यस्तता एक विकल्प है। हमारे पास समय सीमाएं, परियोजनाएं और गतिविधियां हो सकती हैं, लेकिन हमारे पास यह चुनने की स्वतंत्रता है कि क्या हम क्रिया व्यसित और व्यस्त-आलसी हो जाते हैं, या बस कई गतिविधियों के अनुभव का निरीक्षण करते हैं। यह एक विकल्प है। और उस विकल्प को बनाने की क्षमता एक स्पष्ट दिमाग विकसित करने से आती है, जो कार्रवाई की लत से मुक्त हो।
आजकल हम सभी व्यस्त रहते हैं, अति ग्रस्त और शायद तनाव में हैं। यह हमारी पहचान का हिस्सा है। अगर हम व्यस्त हैं तो हम महत्वपूर्ण हैं। यदि हम तनावग्रस्त हैं, तो यह इसलिए है क्योंकि हम प्रतिबद्ध हैं और कड़ी मेहनत कर रहे हैं। यह हमारे आधुनिक समाजों के डीएनए में है। यदि हम व्यस्त और तनावग्रस्त नहीं हैं, तो हम पर्याप्त प्रयास नहीं कर रहे हैं। हमारे साथ कुछ गड़बड़ है। लेकिन लाखा ने एक स्पष्ट विकल्प दिखाया; कई गतिविधियां होना और अत्यधिक प्रभावी और उत्पादक होना, लेकिन मानसिक स्पष्टता और शांति बनाए रखना - कार्रवाई की लत के आगे घुटने न टेक देना । अस्तित्वगत रूप से आलसी न होना।
प्रतिबिंब के लिए मूल प्रश्न: अस्तित्वगत रूप से आलसी होने से आप क्या समझते हैं? क्या आप कोई व्यक्तिगत अनुभव बाँट सकते हैं जब आप आलस्य के बारे गहराई से जागरूक हुए हों? ऐसा क्या है जो आपको "व्यस्त" हुए बिना किसी गतिविधि में रहने में मदद करता है ?
रैसमस होउगार्ड “संभावित परियोजना”(Potential Project) के संस्थापक हैं, जैकलिन कार्टर वन सेकंड अहेड की लेखिका हैं। उपरोक्त अंश माइंडफुल पत्रिका के एक लेख से लिया गया है।
Rasmus Hougaard is the founder of the Potential Project, Jacqueline Carter is the author of One Second Ahead. Excerpt above is from an article in Mindful magazine.
SEED QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION: What does being existentially lazy mean to you? Can you share a personal experience of a time you became acutely aware of this laziness? What helps you be in activity without being "busy"?
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15 Past Reflections
On Feb 22, 2024 Diksha wrote :
"If we are busy, we are important - this statement is so relatable. I have found myself to embody this statement quite often recently. I would intentionally make up tasks to add to my to-do list in order to seem "busy". For some reason, multitasking has always been one of my strong suits - because now that I see, I felt "important" thinking that there as so much to do. However since the past few months of this self elf exploration journey, I have realize the imp. Of doing "nothing" and slowing down, to make time always for friends and family. Afterall balance in both of these realms is what will keeps the ship afloat. I hope to not add unnecessary talks to my to-do list and approach tasks without pushing them off.
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On Feb 21, 2024 Madhuri wrote :
Alters my thinking!! Wondering how consciousness of self seems to be a task to be avoided . Ofcourse it's easier to get into a lot of hard work then to sit with our own pain and grief and why would we not choose easy? Except when we are ready to liberate ourselves from the fear of pain!
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On Feb 20, 2024 Monica Castillo wrote :
Exitentially lazy means to me , I have not choosen to take the time to pause, and reflect before acting.
When I have been lazy in this matter I have taken enough time to pause, reflect and switch gears to be present to family when I was working. I prioritized busy no value added reports over the human spirits that are part of my heart. Being grounded and intentional in what I am doing helps me be active and not busy. When I am in this intentional space my work, my conversatons and cooking are so rich!
When I have been lazy in this matter I have taken enough time to pause, reflect and switch gears to be present to family when I was working. I prioritized busy no value added reports over the human spirits that are part of my heart. Being grounded and intentional in what I am doing helps me be active and not busy. When I am in this intentional space my work, my conversatons and cooking are so rich!
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On Mar 26, 2023 Michael Maxwell Steer wrote :
I wouldn’t call it laziness. I would call it anxiety – that has to be averted by being active :: in an attempt to convince myself that my life has value/meaning, when I'm afraid of the emptiness within. I guess busyness is my version of other people's muzak.
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On May 31, 2019 jerard lizares wrote :
lazy on a way we tend to avoid some comfrontation in our lifelife, be it intentionally or not. Before , I used to drown myself just working and it consume so much of my time, believing that it fullfills me in the hope of promising career path.
​​Having the though ,on the contrary, it will cover the other side of me, like having a gap with my family, but i was wrong.
​​​​​Having a clear mind will help you to balance among of the aspects of you life.
​​Having the though ,on the contrary, it will cover the other side of me, like having a gap with my family, but i was wrong.
​​​​​Having a clear mind will help you to balance among of the aspects of you life.
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On Apr 5, 2019 steve wrote :
What a person wants to accomplish in life must have a starting point, however, when comes to business finance is vital . If I can realize my dreams without it, show me the way
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On Mar 22, 2019 Rajul Shah wrote :
Being existentially lazy to me means not being aware of the core values of one's life, of being like on a treadmill, running but not reaching anywhere. I was made to acutely aware of this laziness when my life and my family' life were shaken up by illness and death in family. It was a 'wake up' call. Daily introspection at the end of the day asking oneself what am i doing? why am i doing? did it affect any of my core values? helps me personally with this awareness. Being in activity without being 'busy' to me , means being aware of what is the purpose of one's life? Also, keeping Death in awareness, realizing the limited life span one has, helps me to be in awareness and thus in activity without being 'busy'.
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On Mar 20, 2019 Quacinda wrote :
Seed questions for reflection:
1.) What does being existentially lazy mean to you?
To me it means that:
• I have beenunaware of my own domestication - how I was trained to be and to behave.
•It means I am caught up in dysfunctional drama.
• it means I am living by lies instead of truth.
2.)Can you share a personal experience of a time you became acutely aware of this laziness?
Long story short.. when I realized I put-up with crap because I was raised to accept others being dominate and powerful over me. I was taught to give-in, to 'turn the other cheek' accepting and even going beyond acceptance by offering the abuser 'to do it again', all in the name of God [and in this way making a sacrificeof sorts - becoming a martyr, suffering for others and believing God has a reward for me in the endfor God.
I didn't realize I could say no to abuse and walk away from it. And I didn't have to stay in an abusiverelationship in order to live right.
Ibecam... [View Full Comment]
1 reply: Aj | Post Your Reply
On Mar 19, 2019 David Doane wrote :
Existentially lazy means avoiding the most important questions in life, for example: Who am I? What am I doing with my life? What contribution am I making to life? How is my relatedness with others? I became acutely aware of this laziness when I became aware that doing and busyness can be ways to avoid being, and it is being that is most important. Hougaard and Carter's line from Joseph Campbell about climbing the ladder of success only to find out the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall is a way of saying that our striving in busyness may be taking us away from being rather than toward being. When I am in activity without being busy, what helps me is having a sense of being in the world of busyness while not being of it, abiding in awareness of the ocean of eternal Being that we are all part of while I am simultaneously busy with some surface flotations that come and go. When I am in activity being without being busy, I enjoy what Buddhism refers to as equanimity.
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On Mar 17, 2019 Xiaoshan wrote :
Wise words, "Keeping ourselves busy so we do not have to face life." Keeping myself busy is easy. Facing life is not only hard but scary. So if I choose busyness, which I do often, is because it is easy. It kicks the can down the street so I do not have to do hard work and confront my fear, until perhaps when I am too old to stay busy or I am so ill and have to face my death. Not sure what could be done or thought of at that moment, except regrets and prayers for another chance of life.
The world around me is doing everything it can, to push me staying busy and 'engaged'. Competition of all sorts, job security, peer pressure, 140 TV channels, Clash Of Clans, deteriorating backyard, emails, FaceBook,and Twitter, are only a few among the countless distractions. I am in such a rush to go somewhere, or nowhere. This is, what being existentially lazy means to me.
The world around me is doing everything it can, to push me staying busy and 'engaged'. Competition of all sorts, job security, peer pressure, 140 TV channels, Clash Of Clans, deteriorating backyard, emails, FaceBook,and Twitter, are only a few among the countless distractions. I am in such a rush to go somewhere, or nowhere. This is, what being existentially lazy means to me.
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On Mar 15, 2019 Kristin Pedemonti wrote :
Thank you for this timely reminder! Being existentially lazy to me means giving oneself the time to reflect, the quiet to contemplate and the space to simply be. What helps me be in activity without being "busy" is to be in it mindfully and to focus on one task at a time. This is something I honestly work on weekly because I have had the tendency (especially when I lived in Washington DC) to get really caught up in busy. Now that I am in a more quiet space (literally) I find that it is easier to focus in on one thing at a time, to actually take weekends off and NOT fill the time with tasks or mindless activities.
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On Mar 15, 2019 Jagdish P Dave wrote :
To me being existentially lazy means being mindfully aware of the actions I do in my everyday life. This kind of awarenesshelps me to make wise choices."The ability to make that choice comes from my developing a clear mind, free of action addiction.", as the authors RasmusHouggardand Jacqueline Carter state in this article.
I became clearly awareof this laziness on one nice day when was walking barefooted and fell down and got hurt. This experience made me realize how much my mind was busy, driven by action addiction. I learned a lesson of being existentially lazy, of being mindfullyawareof the choices I make in my everydaylife. I am appreciating the valueof a a couple of a few wise sayings. Easy does it...Hasten slowly... Know when non-doing is better than doing... A wise person knows what to do and not do, when to do and when not to do.
As I am growing up I have been learning many lessons mostly from me. One has been like a mantra. Take 5 deep, slow and gentle breaths bef... [View Full Comment]