We Have Normalised the Abnormal: "I have No Time"

By Siphosami Ndlovu

Do you ever feel like there is just too much to do and not enough time to do it? You feel rushed, pressured and stressed out?

However hard you try, you never get caught up?

The tyranny of the urgent consumes your life. You rush from one task to another!

Why do we normalise the abnormal? I normally hear people crying: "I have no time to rest, no time to visit important people like biological parents."

We live in a generation that brags about being busy. Being busy has become a status symbol.

We celebrate hustle, but we have forgotten that a machine that never stops will eventually break down.

The truth is, we all have the same 24 hours. It is not about having time, it is about making time.

We make time for what we value. If we can make time to scroll on social media for 3 hours, we can make time to call our mother for 5 minutes.

You Cannot Cheat Nature: The Energy Drink Lie

Some go to the extent of committing slow suicidal gestures by buying high caffeine energy drinks to keep writing, studying or driving.

This practice is futile and dangerous. Sleeping and resting is natural. Can we win the war against nature? No.

Science is clear, high-caffeine energy drinks do not give you energy but borrow it.

They block adenosine, the chemical that tells your brain you are tired. The tiredness is still there, you just don't feel it.

You cannot replace sleep with caffeine. Sleep is when the brain cleans itself, stores memory and repairs the heart. No energy drink does that.

As noted by author Mark A. Finley in When God Said Remember, we have become addicted to multi-tasking, trying to do two or three things at once.

Syndicated columnist, Arianna Huffington said, "Some of my friends feel alive only when they are living on the brink, dealing with half a dozen crises, wallowing in the drama of it all and having to drug themselves to sleep."

The Price of "No Time" - Especially With Parents

Failure to get time to relax normally results in fatal consequences and broken families.

In African culture, visiting biological parents is not a favour, it is identity. When we say "no time for parents," we are slowly eroding our own support system.

Money can be replaced, but time with parents cannot. What will you remember on your deathbed? The extra emails you sent, or the time you did not spend with those who gave you life?

Medical science confirms the danger. Doctors Ray H. Rosen and Meyer Friedman termed this the 'Type A personality', always driven, obsessed with urgency, never satisfied, continually under stress.

A study decades ago, 1985, by the National Center for Health Statistics found half of 40,000 workers reported a lot to moderate stress and three-fourths said their jobs cause stress.

A special report on MSNBC noted chronically anxious men are 30-40% more likely to have a heart attack. As Dr. Nieca Goldberg of New York University said, "Doctors need to do more than prescribe medicine... they need to deal with the psychological aspect."

We must choose, it is better to rush to rest than to be rushed to "rest in peace" by nature.

The Balance - What Must We Do?

I am not saying do not work hard. Work hard, but work wisely. God Himself has given us a meaningful boundary, it is really a place in time, an island of peace where we can rest, as Finley notes from Genesis 2:1-3.

1. Plan your rest like you plan your work. Put "Visit parents" in your diary like a business meeting.

2. Quality over quantity. Even 30 minutes of present, phone-free time with family is better than a whole day of being physically there but mentally absent.

3. Understand that rest is productive. Rest is not laziness. A rested mind makes better decisions than an exhausted one.

Let us stop normalising the abnormal. Being too busy for your health and for your parents is not success, it is a red flag.

Siphosami Ndlovu is a seasoned performing artist, author, arts director and producer.