Too busy?

Time flies when you live like an American.  A friend of mine (Dayna) pointed out to me this past weekend that I hadn't blogged since March 14.  I actually didn't realize it had been that long.  The past few months have been extremely busy.  I'm not complaining or anything, but life has been pretty busy this summer for some reason.  Wait, now that I think about it, it seems that life is always busy.  Is that really the case though?  

When you run into to someone you haven't seen for awhile a

nd you ask that person how things are, the response usually includes something about how busy he or she is.  When you or others feel bad about not being in better contact with friends or family, what is the usual excuse?  Too busy.  When we say that we really need to take better care ourselves and work out more, what's the excuse for not doing so?  Too busy.  

Is 'too busy' the default American excuse?  Do we schedule ourselves until we have no time to do things that are truly important and perhaps even necessary?  Are our priorities out of sync?  

Perhaps some of those things are occurring, but I have to wonder if we even really are as busy as we think we are.  Don't get me wrong - I know a lot of us have demanding careers, classes, and families.  But I have to wonder, if I added up all the minutes in a day that I spend doing nothing, how much time would that be?

I might suggest that many people, including myself, waste more time throughout the course of a day than they realize.  I am most likely worse than others; for example: rather than staring at the floor in the morning waiting for the coffee to get done, I could email a friend.  Or rather than sitting on the couch for ten minutes when I get home 'decompressing,' I could use that time to blog!

Well, perhaps people are extremely busy.  There is certainly something to be said for that argument.  But in addition to my being fairly busy, I know that I waste a substantial amount of time that could be used for more productive tasks.

Maybe this will be a New Year's resolution;  we know how well those usually work out.