5 Areas Of Life Destroyed By Hurry (& Anxiety)
How hurried is your life?
When I meet with individuals in counseling, the most common complaint is anxiety. “I feel terrible. I’m anxious. I’m stressed.” In response, counselors often help develop skills, consider your body, and maybe will even recommend medication. But more often than not, the problem isn’t personal. It’s structural. We are too busy, keeping an unsustainable pace of life. And hurry, or busyness, in the West is a new normal.
Here are 5 Areas of Life Destroyed by Hurry:
1. WE SLEEP LESS THAN EVER:
Sleep is the fundamental way that our bodies repair and rest, in response to stress and strain (both physically and psychologically). Yet, many people have a conflicted (if not downright resentful) relationship with sleep.
Prior to the invention of the lightbulb, look at some of the language we used to describe sleep:
“Enjoy the honey heavy dew of slumber” – Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar
“Sleep is the golden chain that ties health and our bodies together” – Thomas Decker
400 years later and the tone changes dramatically:
Thomas Edison: “Sleep is a terrible waste of time and a heritage from our cave days.”
1980s Margaret Thatcher: “Sleep is for wimps.”
Gordon Gecko: “Money never sleeps.”
With the lightbulb, we invaded the night and treated sleep as a nuisance, instead of friend. Prior to this, individuals slept 11 hours per night. Today, Americans sleep on average less than 7 hours/night.
2. WE WORK MORE THAN EVER
Past political theorists and sci-fi writers speculated that, by now, we would be working much fewer hours.
One famous senate subcommittee was told in 1967, that by 1985, the average American would work only 22 hours/week for 27 weeks per year. They thought the main problem in the future would be too much leisure.
In reality, the exact opposite has happened to us. The average American works 4 more weeks per year than they did in 1979.
Moreover, the lines between home and work have blurred significantly, with work emails leisurely floating into the time you spend with your friends, your children, and your home relationships.
3. OUR ATTENTION IS CONTINUOUSLY COMPROMISED:
A recent study showed that the average person touches the iPhone more than 2617x/day (Dscout, 2017). Another study on millennials put the numbers on twice that.
A trend in these phone studies is that users don’t even realize they’ve spent that much time.
A similar study found that just being in the same room as our phones, even when they are turned off, will quote “reduce one’s attention and problem solving skills.” (University of Austin Texas, 2017).
Translation: They make us dumber.
Why is this important? Because we are a part of a revolution of attention control.
The more I speak with clients, it’s clear that this is a crucial ingredient to our busyness, to our anxiety, to our inability to slow.
Microsoft Researcher Linda Stone wrote, “Continuous, partial attention is our new normal.”
Do you think this is affecting your relationships?
Your parenting?
Your use of time?
Your relationship with God?
And this leads to…
4. OUR LOVE IS MUTED OR LOST ALTOGETHER.
What is Jesus going after, in my life?
Jesus has this incredibly clarifying moment when he is asked, “What is the greatest commandment?” (In other words, "What’s the most important thing?”)
He responds, “Love the Lord your God, with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength.” Followed only by, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
But love is painfully time consuming. All parents know this. So does anyone with deep or long-term friendships. John Marc Comer describes:
“Hurry and love are incompatible. All my worst moments as a dad, husband, and friend… are when I’m in a hurry” (Comer, 2019).
When I’ve overloaded my schedule, am late for an appointment, or feel behind… who am I? I ooze agitation, tension. I have no capacity to see the needs, the longings, the eyes of those around me. In other words, I cannot love.
In contrast, the life of Jesus painted a picture of love, joy, and peace. These are the deep traits that Jesus wants to grow in your (and my) life. I can’t help but wonder how many of us need to hear these words from Jesus (which he spoke to the busy character of Martha): “You are worried and upset about many things. But few things are needed, or indeed, only one.” (Luke 10:41)
5. OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD IS CROWDED OUT.
Corey Tenboom said, “If the devil can’t make you bad… he’ll make you busy.”
Carl Jung, the famed psychologist, “Hurry is not of the devil… he is the devil.”
Busyness has the effect of crowding out spiritual disciplines and our relationship with God. And if our schedules are overbooked or we are feeling behind, then we are too busy to live emotionally healthy and vibrant spiritual lives.
Michael Zigorelli of the Charleston University School of Business conducted a study of over 20,000 Christians across the globe known as “Obstacles to Growth.” He was asking, “What are the biggest obstacles to one growing spiritually?” Here was his hypothesis about busyness:
“It may be the case that…
1. Christians are assimilating to a culture of busyness, hurry, and overload, which leads to
2. God becoming more marginalized in Christians’ lives, which leads to…
3. A deteriorating relationship with God, which leads to…
4. Christians becoming even more vulnerable to secular assumptions regarding how to live…
5. More conformity to a culture of busyness, hurry, and overload.”
RESOURCES TO HELP US WITH OUR BUSYNESS:
One of my favorite books is “Ruthless Elimination of Hurry” by John Marc Comer (from which this post borrows heavily!), which helps consider busyness and practice slowing. It’s a hopeful resource that invites us back to the spiritual disciplines, which God gives for our rest, peace, and joy.
I spoke at Reach Church about this in 2022. You can listen/watch it here on Apple Podcast or at the Reach Website.
In our next post, I’ll consider “5 Ways to Practice Slowing,” which I now understand to be a crucial spiritual discipline in the fight against anxiety.