Being Busy Made Me Feel Important, But Now I Feel at Peace

a post by Heather Picard for the Tiny Buddha blog


“You should sit in meditation for twenty minutes a day, unless you are too busy, then you should sit for an hour.” ~Ancient Zen proverb

I used to think that life was about powering through things. I’d grab a latte, write my to-do list, and proudly cram as many things as possible into my day.

At work, there was staff, payroll, invoices, customers, marketing, and the occasional cleaning of an office bathroom. At home, there was parenting, dinner, cleaning, homework, bedtime, laundry, and plans for the next day. When my eyes could no longer remain open, I’d fall into a restless night’s sleep accompanied by a busy mind and grinding teeth.

I figured I had no choice. I had two kids, a husband, a landscape business, a school that wanted parent participation, a co-housing community with obligations, and an overachiever complex.

There was plenty on my plate just being a mother of two with a family business. But what made matters worse was me going above and beyond. I was president of the school foundation, head chef for community meals, point person for committees, and in my free time, (when was that exactly?) an aspiring athlete training for triathlons. I wanted to be the woman who could do it all, and do it well.

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Create More, Consume Less: A Surefire Way to Feel More Excited About Life

a post by Lori Deschene for the Tiny Buddha blog


“Creating means living.” ~Dejan Stojanovic

We live in a consumer culture. We love to eat, drink, and be merry—while binge watching whatever’s trending on Netflix and getting a dopamine hit for every item added to our cart on Amazon Prime.

We love to take it all in—information, entertainment, status updates, news reports, substances, and an endless array of stuff. There’s never a shortage of things we can consume, often to keep our minds distracted and our feelings silenced.

Now don’t get me wrong. I love a good meal, a Jim Beam or two, and an afternoon spent zoned out on my couch, Penn Badgley haunting me hour by hour as his stalking escalates from creepy to criminal.

And I’m all for staying educated and updated, on issues both important and inane. I’ve spent hours obsessively researching all things health-related, and I’m embarrassed to admit that my search history reveals more than a healthy number of celebrity websites, if such a number exists.

I also understand the instinct to shut down for a while. Our minds can get intolerably loud, and sometimes, external demands can be overwhelming. A little disengagement can be a good thing in a world that often requires us to be on.

But there needs to be some kind of balance. If we spend our whole lives ingesting information and scarfing down an assortment of stuff meant to soothe us, we’ll never have the time or space to connect with ourselves and create the things we want to create.

I’m not talking just about artistic expression, though I personally feel more alive when I’m bringing some type of creative vision to life. I’m talking about filling the void inside with our own curiosity, passion, and awe instead of constantly stuffing it with external pleasures.

It may not seem like it in the moment when our shows, social media, or shopping carts beckon, but often the greatest pleasure stems from actively working toward a life that excites us.

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The Case for Downtime

a post by Therese J. Borchard for the World of Psychology blog



I’m scared of downtime. That’s right, relaxation is downright uncomfortable for me. Part of me craves it like every other human being. Yet as soon as it is here, I twitch. I pace the house. I don’t know what to do with my hands and my legs — even more importantly, my brain. Sometimes the quiet space is too intolerable so I fill it with mindless activities like scouring Facebook or checking how many Twitter followers I have.

My busyness is, at times, a defense mechanism whereby I can prove that I matter and deserve a place among the human race. My brain somehow associates productivity with intelligence, worthiness, and popularity. To-do lists decrease the risk of my annihilation. The more responsibilities, the more emails to return, the stronger the reassurance that I will survive as a middle-aged woman living in Annapolis, Maryland.

Sound crazy? I’m not alone.

Tim Kreider calls it the “busy trap.” In his New York Times piece, he writes, “Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day.”

But it comes at a cost.

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Life's Too Short to Be Too Busy

a post by Mimi Bishop for the Tiny Buddha blog


“Slow down. Calm down. Don’t worry. Don’t hurry. Trust the process.” ~Alexandra Stoddard

Heard in the offices across America…

“I’m so busy and have no time!”

“How is it almost 2019 already?!”

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead…”

We’re so focused on the next deadline, getting the next promotion, having the approval of our managers and peers alike that we push, push, push all the time.

Oh, how I can relate! I worked in corporate America commuting into NYC (two hours each way!) as the VP of marketing at a major media company. And I worked… a lot.

When I wasn’t at work, I was running around, checking things off my long to-do list, pretending to be Martha Stewart and always trying to accomplish the ‘next thing.’

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There’s More to Life Than Being Busy: Why I Took a Pressure-Free Pause

a post by Will Aylward for the Tiny Buddha blog

“When we get too caught up in the busyness of the world, we lose connection with one another – and ourselves.” ~Jack Kornfield

It was a Monday a few weeks ago, 6:00am, and I was taking a morning walk. The only light in sight was the neon yellow glare of the street lamps.

My heart was heavy. It was as if someone had cut my chest open while I was asleep and slipped a cannonball inside.

My alarm had awoken me at 5:00am, as it had every morning since the start of the year.

My shoes crunch-crunched in the snow as I trudged along, ignoring this dull ache in my chest, telling myself “It's just resistance to being up so early. Keep pushing through; gotta get those 12,000 steps today, Will.”

I got to the end of the road, a mere eighty or so meters from my house, and WHOOSH, a wild wave of emotions washed over me, forcing me—jolting me—to stop walking and stand still and silent in the snow.

I stood and stood as if I'd fallen asleep upright and frozen to death.

This whooshing wave felt like a panic attack. Except it wasn't.

It was this feeling coming from my chest, the one I had tried to ignore. If its first attempt to get my attention was a whisper, this was a shout.

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