Ruby Writes Books: April 2016

Do you think that Busyness means success? At one point I thought that successful were busy; however, that has changed.

You know how you have those moments in life where you stand still and it as if time has frozen. You look around and see everyone rushing. Cars are flying past, people dash and everyone is frantically tapping their mobiles. In that moment of stillness I wondered what people were rushing towards because there is only one ultimate destination: death. So with that as the destination then why rush?

That one epiphany made me think. I sat at my desk watching numerous emails ping into my inbox. I watched a colleague balancing numerous projects and glanced at my manager who was trying to answer emails whilst answering questions on a conference call. Everyone was so busy. It was then I realised how we are conditioned to think that busy-ness is business. Being busy all the time is not success – it is stress. Maybe busyness should be re-named busy-stress. It is ridiculous.

That evening I met up with some of my ex-rowing crew members. These girls are hardcore dedicated athletes. We used to train around 20 hours a week to compete and we all worked full time too. They left the competitive arena of rowing and funnily enough most of them have become endurance sea swimmers. I feel that you may have an idea of their mentality: very focused – work hard, train hard and be very busy. So I raised the busyness issue. Why are we all so busy? I advised them that I craved time to be silent and do nothing and not be with anyone. They were horrified and asked why would I want to spend time alone? My response was ‘because that is how I recharge.’ One of them shook her head sadly and said she hated being alone. In fact she avoided it. She said she trained hard to physical exhaustion and went home and slept. I was stunned and looked at the rest of the group who all agreed. So I had to get it straight – ‘so you are all keeping yourself busy and exhausting yourselves to avoid feeling lonely?’ There was silence and they all nodded. Each explained their stories. Two were in relationships and gave examples of what they did when their partners were away to avoid feeling lonely – usually hold a dinner party or get friends over. I wondered why people assumed that when they were alone they would get lonely. It then occurred to me that our society is over-stimulating us and people actually are not resting through fear of being alone or feeling lonely. That night was quite an insight into ten women’s inner lives.

Over the next weeks, something about this lurked in the back of my mind. It was as if something was brewing. So I wondered whether when I was alone for an extended period I would feel lonely. I will be honest I have never even considered that. So I took some time out of my busy schedule and spent four whole days alone and guess what? It was bliss! Ha! Hence less blogs than usual. The plan was not to do, tidy, clean. Instead I was able to just do nothing a duvet day. Of course there was a lot of sleep, meditation and just doing nothing. At times I felt guilty for not being productive. That concerned me – why do I always have to be productive? The thing is in that ‘empty’ time my creative juices flowed. I had times where I was bored and day dreamed and came up with some wonderful ideas to write. It was then that I realised that busyness distracts us from real success. Are you ready for this and this is what I realised – for me – the true success is a feeling of peace and tranquillity whilst feeling connected to the self. When you reach this state you are able to jump into a creative mental pool and have the energy to create/ be productive rather than forcing. In addition in this state one radiates and feels happy. Imagine. So my lovelies my new attitude is do less but strangely achieve more. I hope this inspires