Terms of Disengagement
I am writing this blog, first of all, to myself. I am supposedly on vacation, in refresh mode, leaving a myriad of tasks in limbo for a while. I find that hard to do, and I know I am not alone in the struggle.
The world celebrates ‘busyness.’ Everywhere you look, people are living in a rapid, multi-stimulated way. Those who cannot perform at a sufficiently demanding level are pushed aside to engage others who will try. As the poet Shelley wrote, “the world is too much with us.”
I am surrounded by people who cannot disconnect from their agenda. They are unable to disengage from a lifestyle that drives them to perform. Even when absent from the traditional workspace, they are responding to media, solving problems, reliving conversations and re-evaluating their personal performance.
Somewhere, in our fast-paced culture, we have equated disengagement with a lack of commitment. The two are not synonymous. God desires us to live our lives not in panic but in rhythm, conducting them even as Jesus conducted His.
The Problem
An Accelerated Pace
Everything around us is happening at ‘warp’ speed. We have learned to multitask and have become good at it. But we have not appreciated its long-term consequences on our physical, emotional and spiritual health. Being addicted to being busy is called ‘dysmorphia.’ It is a condition that often leads to severe anxiety, panic attacks, burnout and broken relationships.
The Accessible Tools
Every technological advance over the last thirty years has pushed us towards immediate response in every situation. The very tools that have allowed us to be highly efficient have robbed us of the fulfillment our work should bring us, and the refuelling pauses we desperately need. We feel we are underperforming or being outperformed if we cannot effectively juggle multiple projects simultaneously. However, our human psyche was not wired to integrate the rapid, daily, lightning advances in technology. We can now work anywhere, anytime and all the time. Like any addiction, dysmorphia slowly intensifies and entrenches until it threatens our very life. The same tools that enhance the quality of our work become the masters that drive us to produce even more, until we are overwhelmed: the weapons of our own destruction. We carry the weight of the world in the ‘iPhone’ in our pocket, and we don’t know how to let it go.
The Temptation
We have come to believe that disengaging from our work demonstrates an abandonment of our responsibility. We even begin to believe that our value comes from our performance rather than our personhood. We equate busyness with importance, commitment, and success. ‘Full out’ means we are needed, accepted, safe in our role. Busyness becomes the opiate we use to cover up feelings of failure, insecurity, and the lurking thoughts that we are impostors in our assigned roles. The narcotic of busyness is available, free, and championed and promoted. But as any opiate does, it has lethal consequences. Busyness covers up emptiness, futility, unresolved pain, and the ‘not-good-enough’ feelings we camouflage. It numbs us to issues we really need to face and conquer.
The Cure
Owning It
Like in any addiction, healing can only come when the one suffering from it is honest enough to own it. Here are some pivotal questions to ask yourself:
Am I obsessively busy, at the expense of my own well-being? Am I manifesting an addictive behaviour?
Is my obsession with busyness taking a heavy toll on my primary relationships? (Marriage? Family?)
What personal issues have I been avoiding by keeping myself relentlessly busy? (What am I covering up?)
What validates me – my work or my identity in Christ?
Does available technology rule my life, or is it a servant to help fulfill my purpose? (Am I able to set my laptop, notebook and mobile device aside without constantly being drawn back to them just ‘to check’?)
Am I in control of, or am I controlled by, my relentless agenda?
When was the last time I totally disengaged from my work and my communication devices and found a place of rest?
Summer is a great time to address and settle some of these issues. Jesus is calling you to ‘come apart and rest a while.’ He disengaged, and He taught His disciples to do the same. If we can fight this contemporary trend and win, we will work with greater clarity, creativity, purpose, and fulfillment. Furthermore, our attention will once more be directed back to the people we have been called to serve and away from the volume of work we produce.
Al is an experienced pastor and counselor who works out of our ABNWT District Resource Centre in Edmonton as the Pastoral Care Coordinator. A pastor to the pastors, Al is a friend, mentor, and confidante to all.