Busy anyone? Well I have been… thus the silence… because, you see, the Unicorn, has a day job and it caught up pretty hardly in the past couple of weeks. The Unicorn had ‘business’ to attend to, serious stuff basically, conferences, consulting projects and what have you…
Business… Busy-ness… Ever wondered about that word?
The act of being busy is how we describe a certain type of professional work. As such, that work means basically not having time… Isn’t it interesting? When you are attending to ‘business’, when you are a ‘business man’ or a ‘business woman’ you do not have time… for yourself, for your friends, for your family, for the views you want to share on our world, which, might I add, has taken a scary turn recently… Trump anyone???
But this post won’t turn into a political debate. For decades now I have stirred myself away from ‘news’ and most definitely from politics.
Another interesting word, ‘news’. Can anyone tell me what is ‘new’ in the ‘news’?
Always the same stories of war, control, power, destruction, we have been hearing for thousands of years. The only thing that changes, that is ‘new’, is the protagonists: different countries, different religions, different people. But the same story. So yeah, I do not hear or read the news, there is nothing ‘new’ in them. I never listen to politicians either for as long as they are more interested in their own agenda rather than trying to better the country they are in, they do not deserve to have a comment from me.
Now that this is clear, let me go back to ‘business’, the act of being busy…
Leaving the corporate world I discovered something interesting about time. When I was in my high profile position, when I was a full time ‘business woman’, I would echo what my colleagues would say: ‘where did the time go? Oh my God, we are already in 2016! We are already in November!’
Leaving all that busy-ness behind I realised something magical… Time had slowed down! Basically, when you have time, and are free of the way you dispose of it, you get… more time… Isn’t that incredible?? I actually cannot believe I have only left the corporate world 10 months ago. It feels like a lifetime. I have done so much in that time, travelled, learned countless things about myself, met people in the most unpredictable of places, started projects I never thought I would… yes this blog, is one of those… I barely knew what a blogger was a year ago…
See… when you are not in ‘busy-ness’, your time extends and unfolds in the most extraordinary way.
A French physicist, mathematician and philosopher of the 17th century, Blaise Pascal, wrote a beautiful piece on entertainment, ‘divertissement’ in French. He went back to the Latin etymology of the world ‘diverto’, to divert oneself, and went on to explain how entertainment (‘divertissement’) is the act of filling in your life with countless things to ‘divert’ your attention from your deepest fears, death being of course one of them.
Centuries later it is only obvious that everything we do as a society, through entertainment, business or else, is still, and ever more, a way of creating countless things or activities that would ‘divert’ us from the real questions that should be defining our existence. Why are we here? Do we have a purpose? Who should we be? Can we change the world we are in?
But we do not have time for those essential questions. We are busy, silly!!! Busy doing what? Making a living? Providing for our family? Making money? Gaining status? Power? OK. But to what end?
Ever paused to ask yourself that question… Why? Why are we doing what we are doing? Most probably running around doing them?
Ever paused to ask yourself… When I die, and I meet ‘God’ or, as I prefer to put it, when I get in the after life and rise to a level of ‘super consciousness’ that is in fact ‘God’, and I look back at my life, what I have done, what I have achieved. Ever wondered what you would tell yourself in that state?
Well I did. And I realised that when ‘God’ (or myself in a super state of consciousness) will ask me what I have done with my life, I didn’t want to say “I was the head of a pretty important structure, part of a very important company that sold stuff and generated money”. I figured ‘God’ wouldn’t be very impressed with that. I figured his/her/its next question would be: “ok, but what have you DONE with your life? How did you impact the lives of people around you? How did you leverage on the abilities I gave you? And how did you improve on the flaws in the character I gave you? What did you learn from the challenges and the heartaches? What did you DO with your life???”
Truth is when you are in ‘busy-ness’ you cannot pause and wonder about all that. You are busy, you are running, not sure where, but you most definitely are, up until it is too late to look at your life and ask: what good did I do?
I will keep this post as short as I can, as we are all busy… But just ask yourself, where are you running to? What are you becoming? The great-mega-super-hero version of yourself? Or a pale, energy-less, sometimes soul-less, version of yourself?
With all my love and time,
Riding the unicorn 