Busy World, Busy People

Recently I received an SMS text from a friend whom I have not been in contact with for a long time. The text just read this, "Busy World, Busy People".

And you know what? That simple message made me stop in my tracks. I am just a mere teacher, yet someone thinks I have been too busy to notice friends around me who might be missing my company, or my hello. It came as a realisation to me, how fast paced our life has become, and how sad the whole situation is. Everyone is so rushed for time, we hear constantly that we should manage our time wisely and prioritise our tasks. Unfortunately, we prioritise according to what that brings us profit/benefit. Just taking time to smell the roses, to pick up the phone and say "hi", is no longer particularly high up in our list.

I am just a simple teacher. Today marks the last day of the midyear school break. 14 days of no schooling, no teaching. But on the last day of school I brought back with me 11 sets of exam papers to be marked! In between, because it is a holiday, I had to make time for traveling - first to JB and then to KB to watch my son participate in his nasyid competition. That is time that needed to be allocated for traveling. Then, there was this day or two when I was feeling a wee bit under the weather and couldn't do anything much. Suddenly, before I know it, school holidays are over. And I find myself asking the question - when do I get the time to smell the roses, or to just watch the sun set or to just sit doing nothing but watch my kids play at the seaside/on the field? What with the rush between marking papers and traveling, I find myself just as exhausted as when I was before the school holidays.

So my mind wonders off to those high profiled individuals...morning meetings and evening discussions, the non stop business phone calls, the business emails to be answered, the papers to be completed and office tasks to be finished. Why are we so driven to rush, rush, rush...how did this come about? Why has everything else become so important, but the actions and efforts that can enhance our human relationships get progressively less and less attended to?

At the end of the day, when we claim to have made it, to have succeeded in life, I just hope that we dont turn around and look around us, only to find that there is nobody, no one beside us to share in our success, that we have gone up there ...only to find ourselves alone up there! I can only pray, that I never receive another such SMS with an added clause: busy world, busy people, lonely people...and God knows Best!