“Busyness is not a virtue.”
I remember reading this in a little spirituality magazine years ago and how hard it hit me. I had based most of my school life and self-esteem on being able to do more than anyone else. I was the master of academic overkill and hours worked. Even if I wasn’t elegant or brilliant, I would drown my teachers in sheer volume and commitment.
But busyness didn’t satisfy any of my deeper hungers – for love, for purpose, for God. Adding more projects and clubs and majors may have briefly impressed my friends, but never touched my core. I realized that my busyness was a way of running away from myself. I had to step away, center in, and discover the me I was when I wasn’t President of this or “in charge” of that.
It’s a lesson I try to re-learn regularly at Yale. We are of value not because of
what we accomplish, but because God treasures us as we are.