Miss Mandie

I came across an email from a few years ago.

I was searching for my mum’s pumpkin soup recipe and somehow found an old email from a school friend. Says a lot for the apparent “organised” filing of my inbox.

It was an email thread that transported me back to my life in 2006.

At the time I was selling my house, tackling a Masters course, on the verge of exiting the full-time working caper, entangled in an on-again-off-again-aint-no-hope-of-really-going-anywhere relationship, drinking myself silly with friends, financially strapped waiting impatiently for said house sale, and dreaming of future possibilities with that expectant feeling that something big was about to happen.

What struck me the most was the hyperactive tone of my email reply.

“Could Mandie be abusing amphetamines?” would have been a completely acceptable response to reading such an overuse of the humble exclamation mark and repeated reassurance of just how full and amazing life was at the time.

I wasn’t taking many drugs back then, but I was busy.

Busy worrying, busy working, busy studying, busy socialising, busy creating “house sale dramas and nightmares”, busy drinking, busy pining, busy trying to work out the answers, busy gossiping, busy reassuring, busy dieting, busy story telling, busy arguing, busy complaining, busy planning, busy getting ahead.

Our society is great at helping people who want to be busy.

Hell, our whole economy is based upon people being busy.

I suspect I had fallen into the “busy trap” because I was frantically trying to find the answers; to fill my life up so that it somehow made sense.

Last night it occurred to me just how un-busy my life now is.

A friend wanted to come visit. He asked me when a good time would be.

I looked at the calendar, and realised that other than Monday night meditation and a few appointments here and there, my schedule is pretty much clear.

Holy shit.

I am so remarkably un-busy that I recently went six days without having a conversation with anyone (emails/facebook not included).

Yes, I am still busy studying (the Masters course was superseded by the life coaching course).

But other than that, my life has taken a u-turn into the slow lane.

The great thing about it is I have realised how comfortable I am now with the amount of space in my life.

I am comfortable with the pace that things unfold now, without a colossal amount of action on my behalf to make things happen.

So what’s been my secret in getting “un-busy”? Here a few things that helped me:

1. I redefined what success means to me

I am no longer chasing things in order to be happy at some future moment in time. My definition of success now is how much I enjoy each day (permission to vomit at the cliché) and how strong my connection is with my inner self.

Changing my outlook to focus on loving what I do with each day and loving who I am has allowed me the space and breathing room from the incessant pursuit of something.

I also let go of the idea I had to be doing something with my life by <insert whatever age that you think a particular milestone should be attached>. This has given me tremendous freedom as now I am not working towards some imaginary finish line at that particular age.

Over 30 and single? I don’t care.

Over 30 and unemployed? I don’t care.

Over 30 and broke? Yep, you guessed it. I don’t care.

I don’t need to panic about that certain age approaching because it doesn’t matter as I haven’t got a preconceived idea anymore about what I should or shouldn’t be doing at this age. This could very well tie into “giving up on should’s and have to’s”, “having faith things will work out” and “not comparing myself to others”.

2. I have faith things will work out

I loved Allison Nazarian’s “A matter of trust”. It really highlights in great eloquence how trust works in my life now.

I fully trust that things are unfolding in perfect order for me.

This means I don’t have to be busy trying to make stuff happen. I just have to take action where appropriate and trust that things will work out one way or another.

Sure, I’ve had my uncertain “wtf!?” moments, particularly since my money ran out, but because I have a solid belief that things will work out just fine for me, I haven’t been sucked back into making myself unnecessarily busy just for the sake of it.

3. I gave up on “should” and “have to”

This has freed up an incredible amount of time!

How many moments of our lives are consumed with the dreaded “should” word.

I am forever grateful to a friend who was the “should police”; pointing out every time one of us would curse ourselves with it.

It’s ingrained in me now. Whenever I hear the word “should” skip across my mind, it’s immediately followed by a defiant “why the f**k should I!?”

I have since been on a crusade to turn all should’s/haves to into “I want”.

And if I don’t want to do it, then it ain’t going to happen.

For those concerned about what others might think it you stopped doing the things you think you “should” be doing, I am happy to report I still have family and friends who love me very much

4. I stopped comparing myself to others

The day I realised and got comfortable with the fact that I am on my own, unique journey and that it doesn’t matter what anyone else is or isn’t doing, was when things really transformed for me in getting un-busy.

I recall when I was a younger, married version of me (early twenties), I was in such a hurry to accumulate and have what others had. I was ploughing full steam ahead into accumulating debt, belongings, experiences. I hardly took a breath back then. I was a girl on a really big mission.

I was also a big pain in the arse. Super uptight and controlling.

My downfall was my incessant comparison of myself to others.

Comparison to my friends. My family. People in the movies. On television. In magazines. People at work. Comparison to the imaginary picture I had of “successful” people.

Once I let go of that, I no longer felt inadequate when I saw people doing/having things that I didn’t have. Sure, I can use it as inspiration to file away in my “that would ultra cool to do/have” memory bank, but I’m not being driven by (or beating myself up about) the absence of it in my life at this present moment.

5. I no longer care what other people think

If I am honest, one of the reasons I liked being so busy was because it made me feel important. And needed. And loved.

I loved to think how people perceived me as this busy, important, needed and loved person.

Now I don’t care.

Some people think I am nuts the way I live my life now. Others think it’s awesome.

It doesn’t bother me one way or the other.

And that is the beauty of being comfortable with being un-busy. You stop caring what anyone else might think about the distinct lack of “stuff” going on in your life.

I guess it’s easy for me to detach from other people’s opinions given I have “redefined what success means to me”, “have faith that things will work out” and “stopped comparing myself to others”. Ha! It all works in harmony.

6. I learned to love my own company

I remember a time when I had to have people around me to help me feel okay.

Now in my un-busy life, I actually love hanging out by myself.

Admittedly, when my mother broke my six-days-without-a-convo stint, she was bombarded with an explosion of words that had been damming up unknowingly within.

And yes, I still have moments where I feel lonely.

But those moments are so few and far between that I wouldn’t trade my secluded sanctuary here on the mountain ridge for anything right now.

I love who I am now days and I love hangin’ out me

7. I feel satisfied with the simple things in life

We are so over stimulated these days, with constant pressure to consume and be dutiful cogs in the capitalist machine.

Do we really need everything we’re being sold?

I got a lesson when I lived in Romania for a short stint. We ran out of dishwashing liquid in the house. There was no store in the village I lived in, and no way of getting to a town with store for the next couple of days.

So what did we do? We used shampoo.

And you know what? It worked just fine.

When I got back to Oz, I just kinda gave up thinking I needed as much as I previously thought I did.

The result? I don’t need that much money to enjoy my life everyday, which means I don’t need to be working to accumulate all the things I thought I needed (although I do happen to use dishwashing liquid for the dishes these days!).

So how about you? What are some of your strategies to help you keep your sanity in this busy world of ours?

[Mandie’s latest note: I started writing this blog post weeks ago (yes, slacker I know). In the meantime, I got a job. I job I really wanted! I will be the part-time Careers & Disability Advisor at a Gold Coast uni as of next Monday. Further proof that things eventually work out. I guess my life will get a little busier from next week. Will let you know how I go keeping things in harmony and balance in my pursuit of remaining “un-busy” despite the addition of more “things” to do in my week]