“How are you?”

“Busy!”

In college and out, I hear this all the time. It’s a fair answer, and I say it too. And then I started to wonder why everyone is so busy. It is college after all. Especially in Claremont, people like to be involved with as many clubs and groups as they can, while also throwing themselves into their academics. But there’s also a culture of busyness that permeates college campuses and the country.

Recently, I’ve been reading a lot about this culture of choosing to be busy, particularly to excess, and I think there are pros and cons. On one hand, people often get to experience a wider range of things, there’s potential for increased productivity, and people by nature hate inactivity and so are preventing boredom. On the other hand, people can choose to be busy for the wrong reasons: you’ve decided to take on an unfeasible amount of work at once, you want to avoid something or someone, or you just don’t know how to say no to things.

One big argument that keeps popping up is that people glorify being busy. Everyone wants to be busy, because then they seem like they’re living life to the fullest, and everyone around you is busy too. Especially in college, it’s the expectation - if you’re not busy, you’re doing something wrong. This argument is unsettling to me because it’s just too true. Every time a friend or I take a few hours or even minutes to ourselves, I feel the need to offer a reminder that it’s the right decision, that it’s OK to not constantly be stressing and running through to do lists. I might be better off by putting “take five minutes to relax” in my calendar.

Although I’m not completely on board with the idea that a culture of being busy is inherently bad or wrong, it does seem like plenty of people take some sort of satisfaction from the fact that they have too much to do. I can see so many of the negatives to an attitude like this: less time to spend with the people you care about, sleep deprivation, burning yourself out, not being able to put your all into each thing, competing over how overwhelmed you are.

However, there are also a lot of positives. Lately I’ve come to realize that I function better when I have a full calendar and long to do lists. I think I even enjoy being right at the edge of having too much to do. It's easy for me to schedule my life - class now, work then, play later. I always feel like I have a lot to do, but I also always know what's coming next.

Personally, I work better under pressure and an external push to finish a task. If someone else needs me to do something, I can guarantee that it’ll get done. From group work for my most hated class to staying up all night figuring something out for a friend, you can count on me. But left to my own devices, I won’t start studying for that midterm until the very last minute, when that pressure kicks in, and you can bet that I won’t take a break until I’ve hit my breaking point. I’m ridiculously good at justifying this to myself: I have to finish that project for work, I should schedule dinner with that group I don’t see often enough, I should check in with my suitemates. All of my excuses are based on what I feel I should be doing to help other people.

I'm one of those people who thrives in this culture of busyness. I try to avoid glorifying the bad parts of it, because nothing about sleep deprivation or not seeing your loved ones is glamorous. But the ways I choose to spend my time let me be involved in more things and connect to more people than I'd otherwise be able to.

I'll never regret how busy I am, because I spend so much of my time with other people or focusing on their needs. But I know that's not the right decision for everyone; many people need a lot more down time to be productive. So maybe that's what it comes down to - making yourself as busy as you need, just doing so for all the right reasons.