To gain the world

My life took a rather sharp turn a year and a half ago, and one of the hardest struggles of that radical change has been fighting off the cultural urge of busyness.  I am quite productive and active, in both a paid and volunteer sense, in and outside of the home, but some part of me still struggles with the idea that I am not 'busy' all the time.  I had the 50 hour a week career (plus on call), the requisite activities, a young family, etc. etc., and I was frenzied, stressed out, and not enjoying it in the least, but from a cultural perspective, I should have been somehow fulfilled.  But I wasn't, so why does part of me feel guilty when I'm not running around like a toddler on a sugar high?  Probably because we moderns have been trained this way since before we could walk!  We need to read, write, count, etc. from an earlier and earlier age, then we begin sports and activities as soon as we are potty trained and can string three words together into a sentence.  Achieve, achieve, achieve!  Therein is your value and worth and all your being.  But it leaves us exhausted and empty and hopeless, because we can never work hard enough to achieve what the world, or we ourselves, think we must.  So we work harder and still find our lives empty and vain.

But it wasn't meant to be that way.  Yes, we must work and be productive, it is a necessary, natural, and good part of our natures but we have taken it to an unhealthy extreme in modern society, and like any other abused substance or trait, the results are disastrous.  There's an antiquated book that reminds us to 'be still and know,' that 'my yoke is easy, my burden light,' and contains mention of something called a 'sabbath,' which urges us to rest one day out of seven.  Even God rested on the seventh day, and no, He was not tired, rather He took the time to look over what He had done and to rejoice in the goodness thereof and to enjoy it.  If life is too frenzied and busy for you to take time to enjoy a good conversation, to spend time with your family, to linger over a nice cup of tea or read a favorite book, then maybe you too need to become counter-cultural.  Can you cut back at work?  Ditch a few activities?  Simply your life?  Do you need the giant house, the third car, the boat or RV?  It isn't easy, it cuts against the grain at times, but it is certainly worth the effort!  'What does it profit a man to gain the whole world but to lose his soul?'  An excellent question for our frenetic day and age!