'Disease of Being Busy' Omid Safi

 to be independent ​http://www.onbeing.org/blog/the-disease-of-being-busy/7023
'How did we end up living like this? Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we do this to our children? When did we forget that we are human beings, not human doings?
Whatever happened to a world in which kids get muddy, get dirty, get messy, and heavens, get bored? Do we have to love our children so much that we overschedule them, making them stressed and busy — just like us?
​What happened to a world in which we can sit with the people we love so much and have slow conversations about the state of our heart and soul, conversations that slowly unfold, conversations with pregnant pauses and silences that we are in no rush to fill? How did we create a world in which we have more and more and more to do with less time for leisure, less time for reflection, less time for community, less time to just… be?'

​Following on from my previous posting having experienced a young childhood of freedom within the rural countryside it astounds me the way children are not left to be children today. Being able to be free to interact and immerse into the outdoor landscape be it a back garden, back yard, out on the street, a wood, a lane, a park anywhere where there is space and room to be creative; to run around, play and interact with the world around you. Fundamentally to learn about self and what it means to be independent. Too many activities are engineered for children today they are not encouraged to be creative in thinking and self expression. This need to fill our children's lives with activities is in direct response to the way we as adults live our lives. The pressures of modern living and the digital age drive this manic insatiable need. In our chaotic world of activities and 'stuff to do' it gives us less time to have significant time to savour those important moments of conversation and being together. Times that a decade or two ago we took for granted and didn't see any significance in. We are constantly interrupted by the need for something else wanting your attention; a text, a message, an email, a Facebook posting, a Twitter posting................................