My wife and I are wedding and portrait photographers. Basically that means from May to August we are totally swamped with work. We also own and operate a clothing company. That means during the summer we hit the road and go to a few music festivals to sell our shirts. During the summer we are busy. This summer has been even busier than summers past. We have booked double the amount of weddings we had last summer and also doubled the amount of festivals we are going to. I just want to clarify something, I am not saying all this so you think that I am so awesome and such a hard worker. That is not the point of this post.
The point of this post is this: Busyness comes, whether you are a wedding photographer or astronaut, busyness comes. I think that we have a very important decision to make in the face of busyness and that is “what matters to you?” I mean what really matters to you way down in your soul because it’s now time to make some cuts. I’ve found that through this busy season I need to take time. Time to breathe, time to relax, time to love, time to pray, time to focus on how I can be my best. The tendency is to just dive into all the busyness and play catch up later.
I want to neglect a lot of things in the name of busyness. I want to neglect my relationship with the Lord. I want to neglect working out, relaxing with my wife, prayer, eating healthy, doing chores and I constantly have to stop and remind myself that I need to make time for what matters. I need to let God know that even in my busiest time of life that he is my center and strength. I need to love my wife through all the stuff we need to get done. I need to love myself, eat healthy and exercise because I want to live a long fulfilling life. I can’t let busyness become my excuse. Busyness cannot become my idol.
One of my greatest mentors, Brian, told me one time that you don’t want to be a frog in hot water. Here is what he meant by that: If you put a frog into boiling water it will jump right out, but if you put a frog in cold water and slowly heat it up the frog will sit in their until it boils to death. The point is that we don’t want to slowly accept things we don’t like in the name of busyness. We don’t want to play catch up on the things that are important, because I think after all the busyness is over we will not be the person that we want to be. Take care of the things near and dear to your heart. Spend time with God, love your family, take care of yourself in the midst of busyness because if you can do it then you can do it all the time and if you can do it all the time your life will be better.