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“I am very busy”. We hear this refrain every day, possibly many times over. “Busy” is often a euphemism for “don’t bother me”, “I can’t do that”, “I am bored and don’t know what to do” and such. Rest assured when someone is busy, the person either has nothing to do or does not know how to do something that is to be done.
Looking busy is often seen as projecting self importance and enhancing self-worth. with a lack of leisure time viewed as a direct indication of higher status. While looking busy may boost our self esteem, it will hurt personal care / development, time with loved ones, and small joys of life time. Some remain busy as a way to avoid unsavory situations and challenges in work. In reality by looking very busy, they do not focus on what may be bothering them or causing them discomfort beneath the surface. Then, there is a danger of work filling the time available leading to inefficiencies legitimizing “looking busy”.
Looking busy is not the same as being busy. We do not need to be busy in order to be productive. Being busy has to do with how we spend our time, whereas productivity has more to do with what we accomplish. Being busy is definitely not the same as being productive. If we look busy, it may project we have a lot on our plate but this doesn’t necessarily mean that we are being productive or using our time efficiently. Work seems to fill time available resulting in inefficiency. Being productive means being able to complete a task or get something done.
Then, there are the “look busy do nothing” types. Being busy or not is a function of time. One is always busy when one lets work to fill the time available. Managing time is the key to the degree of busyness.
So then, what is time?
Time has been a mystery from time immemorial. While some pass time others use it.
VVS Laxman had all the time to play Dale Steyn while some other player was hurried into a stroke. “Once upon a time” has been a favorite starter for stories; maybe because there is an element of uncertainty in it. Uncertain times keep one on the alert and eager to find comfort in certainty. In times of certainty complacency sets in. A soldier is more comfortable in battle than waiting for the battle to join.
We often feel that we have captured time in a clock; unwittingly we only measure day and night as we know it, without possibly understanding time. If you move away from the human plane to the world of the departed a human month equals the length of a day. The brighter half of a lunar month constitutes the day time and the darker half the night.
“Do you have some time”? We ask of others. Everybody from a single person to as many as you can count can have the same time. Newton said “time is absolute”. Einstein said “time is related to space” …now again physicists are going back to Newton. If time is absolute, it has no beginning or end. This cyclical nature of time as believed in Indian philosophy refers to time as ‘anaadi‘ or that without a beginning. That which has no beginning has no end.
(The author Col KL Viswanathan is an Indian Army veteran and a contemporary affairs commentator. The views are personal.)
These pieces are being published as they have been received – they have not been edited/fact-checked by ThePrint