“Everyone I knew was reeling from the pressure of faxes, answering machines, computers–the data pouring in, paper mounting up, messages to be returned, e-mail to answer, Web sites and news groups to check: the rec.complaints group, alt.depression, alt.vaguelongings. Somehow, instead of simplifying people’s lives, technology had managed only to speed up the harassment.” –Garrison Keillor
A recent survey reports that 67 percent of executives say they have given up free time to devote more hours to working. Which made me wonder: What about the other 33 percent? Then it dawned on me: I bet they were so overworked that they just marked answers at random, not even reading the questions.
The next time you’re feeling that frantic, you might want to remember that “frantic” is derived from the Greek word for “delirium” and its original English meaning was “affected with mental disease.”
Freud used to ask his patients, “What purpose does this illness serve?” And being frantic does serve a purpose. It’s like the Starship Enterprise raising its shields. . . .
You (upon entering Biff’s office): “Hiya, Biff. I have a favor to ask.”
Biff (at his computer): “No problem. Let me just get off-line. Man, I have 143 e-mails to answer–no, wait, I’ve added half-a-dozen more since you walked in. Well, I guess I can catch up at home tonight. Oh, look at the time–I was supposed to leave 20 minutes ago. I’m toast. I’m a dead man walking. Anyway, what was it you wanted?”
Then, at home, marriage has become a kind of overcommitment competition where the first one home loses (and thereby earns the assignment of helping the seventh-grader construct a “Beowulf” diorama out of uncooked macaroni).
Yes, frantic is the word. And does it speed up the harassment, or does it speed up our development? British business writer Charles Handy wrote about his wife’s comment on his success: ” `I’m happy for you that your work is going so well,’ my wife said to me one day. `I just think that you should know that you have become the most boring man I know.’ “
Ironic, isn’t it, that the more work you do, the more boring you become? I think of that short list of personal attributes–“healthy, wealthy and wise.” I asked some friends to take their days and divvy up the hours devoted to each of those three characteristics. Setting aside family obligations, and concentrating just on personal time, the percentages worked out to roughly 5/95/0.
We could learn something from athletes. During the last Olympics broadcast, I learned that Katarina Witt once said: “When you’re a young skater, you travel with your coach. When you’re an old skater, you travel with your lover. And when you’re a very old skater, you travel with your physical therapist.”
The businessperson is a lonely traveler. It’s an overstatement, I suppose, to say that the frantic businessperson, when young, travels with debts; when middle-aged, travels with guilt; and when old, travels with regrets. But it’s close enough for me to suggest a day to think, to ponder, to do precisely–nothing.
With all this in mind, it’s time to reconvene the International Nothing Society. I am declaring July 15 as the date for another daylong conference. Mark out that day on your calendar–tell everyone you’ll be at an all-day meeting. Don’t tell anyone that the meeting will be canceled at the last minute. And resist the temptation to plan activities, or to try to catch up. There is no catching up, only a reduction in the speed of vibration. What to do? Here’s one suggestion: The Japanese poet Ryo-Nen, just before dying, wrote,
“Ask me no more.
Only listen to the voice of pines and cedar,
When no wind stirs.”
