Too busy-Not a tribute

A busy life today.Many people ,men, women and children talk of something like busy schedule.Father is busy with business. Mother is busy in the kitchen, scheduling the children's day to day programmes, take them to lot of extra curriuculars-music,dance, swimming, yoga and what not. Children are always in a hurry-busy in home work given by schools and tuition teachers,practice piano lessons, do maths with Abacus.Both parents/children have become addicts to this busy life and never accept anything to the contrary.

There is a lot of difference between how we were brought up and how our grandkids are being motivated.sons and daughters have absolutely no time even to talk with their old parents. Busy--busy--busy--.Is it a tribute or shortcoming?

Definitely there seems to a problem,without realising which we are celebrating.My neighbour
boasted to me that she had not slept even for 3 hours for the past two weeks.Why rational people so irrational in their behaviour?
To be alive in this world of competi tion is it a must to be affected by the stunning malady of'busy'ness.Are they affected or rather infected by it?It seems to be more of bubble of Real Estate Prime lending that shook the world 8 years back.

We are at the wrong path of over valuing certain aspects of life like education, sports, Fine arts etc unconnected to the reality.In the world of communication , we are aware of what everyone else is doing more than what we should do.An unhealthy competition totally unsuited to the skill sets prevails.When we engage ourselves in having all, doing all and achieving all--all become nothing in no time.

Any day this 'too busy', too much involvement is the undisciplined pursuit of MORE,MORE, MORE leading nowhere.Success never means becoming a superman/super woman.
Setting very high expectation, building peer pressure make the children stressful and depressed.
Everyone has started quoting Erricson of the deliberate practice which invariably brings success.The 10,000 hours of practice has gone into the heads of everybody to make son/daighter the best performer in the field without realising what'deliberate practice' means.Is it just an hourbased target?Deliberate practice does not mean 24 hrs busy, but a calculated practice with frequent self assessment, rectification techniques intermitted by 8 hrs sleep a day.

Parents in their high ambitions fix unrealisable targets that keep the parents and children very very busy-definitely not a tribute to either.

It is high time that we stop being too busy, fix the essentials and eliminate the unwanted.Create free zones for themselves and children.Just remove the clutter,focus only on essentials.Overstuffed lives may be made lighter and easier to enable concentration on things that really matter. If not now, never.
We may regret having disregarded a handful of valuable things and having wasted precious hrs in trivial things that do not matter at all.

It has been dinned into our ears that" fortune taps at our door only once and make the hay while sun shines/'
These sayings are not always applicable, We should be able to say 'no' to certain good opportunities and create space for ourselves to decide the essentials.
This may look counter intuitive to go against the popular 'ever busy' slogan.
But the remedy for the crisis is to desist bragging about the " I am too busy' mentality ,desist from MORE and MORE turn towards the more constrcutive , more disciplined 'LESS' and 'BETTER'

Jayasala 42

 

Dear hrastro,
Being actually on the scene you have added much more value to the snippet. Normally seeing, children seem to manage with 'busy' ness and parents are likely to conclude that children are much more capable of coping with pressure. But what psychiatrists feel that a few students may. But majority of children may become tense and depressed at about 16, and the same may be misinterpreted as normal adolescent behaviour. I feel parents, especially mothers have to take care of this aspect. Comparison should be made with the same child at gradual intervels and not with other kids, even with siblings.

My DIL comes with a big box of puzzles, books and other materials to keep the children engaged during the travel and during their stay in India.
They will play for themselves without causing tantrums.The library facility in US is simply amazing!.They take nearly 20 books every 20 days and write what they learn from each book. In schools they are awarded some flag as encouragement.

In India, there are not so much extra curriculars,yet the school pressure itself is too----- much.
As I meet many parents and discuss, they invariably say that they understand the implication but can't help being victimized and somehow they want the children in top schools.It is a vicious cycle. Perhaps after 100 years the third generation of the present day children may feel the pinch and may be placed in an irretrievable mess. God bless them!
Your views on this issue are much more valuable since you people who are endowed with the responsibility of moulding the young minds..

Jayasala 42

 

Dear Syamala,
Thank you for giving a nice feedback.Why is this 'busy'mania? Being busy for 'busy' sake? I don't understand this logic emanating from elite mothers. Once they reach parenthood, perhaps they fall in line with other ordinary people who cannot think beyond a certain level.When my servant maid told me that her daughter is weak in Maths and even with tuitions she is unable to score above 50%.With Reservation system, even with min percentage she could get admission to one of the Engineering colleges in the city.But she says with extra caution that in Engg all subjects are connected with Maths and she is likely to fail. "I have asked her to go in for Arts, where she can be happy and tension free and get good scores. There is no use of pressing the child"she admits.

But we don't get such satisfaction in elite families. Our motto is'If you want to reach the tree, your aim and preparation is to reach the sky. .Some children of their own evince interest in things. The peer pressure created is so enormous these days.. I really pity the young.

jayasala 42

 

Dear hrastro,
You caught the point. Many people want to show off that they are very busy.In those days there was no gas stove. 50% of the time was spent in lighting the oven( aduppu) with firewood.The chores done in minutes these days took hours and hours.So many women had actually no time but to do the kitchen work. With all the gadgets in hand, we can spend more time with children,make them tension free.As you rightly said they are just happy with being busy without realising the purpose of'busy'ness.
Thank you hrastro.

Jayasala 42

 

Dear Pushpa,
you are very correct.'Puli vaal pidiththa nair' kathai pol irukkirathu. They are travelling towards an unknown destination. Kaalaththik kolamaa? alankolamaa?
Jayasala 42