I'm too busy...

“Beware the barrenness of a busy life.” – Socrates

I found that little saying on-line when I decided to write a quick piece about being too busy to write anything lately on my blogs. It has to be a quick piece, because I’m so busy. There is within that simple saying there’s lots of truth and insight. We (I) get so busy with things sometimes that we have no time left for family, friends or other things that are important to a healthy, balanced life. And when I do pause on what I’m busy doing, sometimes I realize that much of what is stealing my time is way less important than the things that I’m ignoring.

I suspect that things like smart phones and the Internet have contributed greatly to this

problem. Because we are almost always “connected”, it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that anything and everything that shows up in a text message or an email is important enough to demand our attention and right away. Seldom is that really the case. Taken to its extreme one sees people sitting and staring at their phones and exchanging messages that go somewhat along these lines: 1 - “What are you doing?” 2 - “Nothing, what are you doing?” 1- “Nothing, too. Where are you?” 2 – “At the Mall.” 1- “Me, too. Where?”  2- “At the food court.” 1 – “Me too. Wave or something.” 2- “I see you.” 1 – “I see you too. Well I’ve gotta go.” 2- “Bye.” Did that keep them busy for a while? Yes. Was it good use of their time? You decide. But, they are connected.

So, I’m trying now not to schedule every minute of every day, or not to get stressed out if I don’t make it to every event that I’ve been invited to attend and not to let my job consume all of the time that it seems to demand. There is always going to be something else in real estate that I could be doing – another appointment I could be trying to make, another Comparative Market Analysis I could be researching, another class I could be taking or another open house I could be conducting. At the end of the day, I don’t want to go to bed thinking about all of the things that were left undone. I’d rather go to bed with some pleasant thoughts of things that I did with family and friends; things that I enjoyed, not things that I felt I had to do.

It is not easy for me. My wife often admonishes me for being a workaholic and I am. I think it is important realize that and admit it. Just as it is important for people to admit to being an alcoholic, if that is the case. The first step to fixing things is to realize there is a problem and admit it to yourself and others.  I’m sure that there are probably workaholic therapy groups, like there are groups for alcoholism, but I don’t know of any locally. I probably couldn’t find time to go anyway – I’m too busy. Is that my phone ringing?

Oh great, now I live in a sourpuss state…

The Associated Press reports that a recent study on personal happiness found that those who live in sunny, outdoorsy states - Louisiana, Hawaii, Florida - say they're the happiest Americans.
The study published in the journal Science was based on two data sets: one on personal reports of happiness for 1.3 million Americans and the other that included quality of life measures such as population density, air quality, home prices and crime rates.

The study was conducted by economists Andrew J. Oswald of the University of Warwick in England and Stephen Wu of Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y.
The top five state for happiness were:
1. Louisiana
2. Hawaii
3. Florida
4. Tennessee
5. Arizona

At the other end of the scale, last in happiness - is New York state. And just guess were we here in Michigan came in. At least we weren’t the worst state. We were the third from the bottom of the list. The bottom five are:

47. New Jersey
48. Indiana
49. Michigan
50. Connecticut
51. New York

Oswald suggested the long commutes, congestion and high prices around New York City account for some of the unhappiness.

He said he has been asked if the researchers expected that states like New York and California, which ranked 46th, would do so badly in the happiness ranking.
“I am only a little surprised," he said. "Many people think these states would be marvelous places to live in. The problem is that if too many individuals think that way, they move into those states, and the resulting congestion and house prices make it a non-fulfilling prophecy."

Besides being interesting, the state-by-state pattern has scientific value, Oswald explained. "We wanted to study whether people's feelings of satisfaction with their own lives are reliable, that is, whether they match up to reality - of sunshine hours, congestion, air quality, et ceteras - in their own state. And they do match." Oswald and Wu used data from CDC's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System collected from 2005 to 2008. The survey, launched in 1984, collects information on a variety of health measures.

At a macro level, the recent world happiness survey concluded that the United States was not anywhere near the top of the happiness scale. Would you believe it, Bangladesh is the happiest nation in the world! The United States, on the other hand, is a sad story: it ranks only 46th in the World Happiness Survey. That's way behind India, the fifth happiest place in the world, and others including Ghana and Latvia, Croatia and Estonia.

Research led by London School of Economics professors into the link between personal spending power and the perceived quality of life has conclusively proved that money can buy everything but happiness. The study revealed that people in Bangladesh, one of the poorest countries in the world, derive far more happiness from their small incomes than, for example, the British (32nd on the list) do from their relatively large bank balances. In fact, people in most rich countries including Austria, Netherlands, Switzerland, Canada, Japan and others are much more unhappier than their poorer counterparts in countries like the Dominican Republic and Armenia.

Most unfortunate, however, are Russians and people in some other parts of the former Soviet Union. They are neither rich nor happy, indicates the World Happiness Survey. Slovenia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Bulgaria and Moldova follow the United States in the list to bring up the rear.

So I guess I live in one of the worst states in one of the worst countries in the world as far as happiness goes. Bummer. I was actually pretty happy with things.