Busy, busy, busy!

[Darkdecent]

People who don't work, haven't worked for years, have one child in full time school.
She's always busy, busy, super busy today!
How busy can you be?

Why do they say this? I know people who are genuinely busy but never mention it.

Is it some sort of insecurity that they feel they should be doing more?

@IceCreamAndCandyfloss

Like others, likely justification to show they can’t possibly work and need to be at home. In real life, people seem to manage full time work, parenting and running a house just fine.

I'm not sure that's true. Many people (or women, largely) are highly stressed and burnt out mentally and physically due to the combination of the above - unless they can afford extras like having a cleaner. l It depends on what you define as 'just fine' I guess.

@OutwiththeOutCrowd

Busier than thou is the new holier than thou.

^ 😄 spot on!

Yes OP your distant relative that you're never going to meet might be fibbing about how busy she is, or deluding herself about what 'busy' actually means. But apart from 'busy' being a relative concept, as PPs have pointed out, did you stop to ask yourself if there might be something troubling her that makes her claim to be so busy (assuming she's not actually that busy)? She might be worried about being judged, for example, and if she read your post she'd be right!

You sound mean. You do realise there are other ways to be busy except paid work or childcare, right?
If you don't even know this person that well then how could you possibly know what she does all day. Quite bizarre to start a thread about it. Just mind your own business!

My partner says he has had a busy day when he's walked the dogs, picked up the shopping and popped to my parents to drop of some shopping. He then hoovers.

I can do all that in the 60 mins after I get home from my full time job. I then usually do all my housework, cook the tea, a bit more work at home and I then run a voluntary organisation.

I'm busy!

(Disclaimer - we don't live together so run separate houses)

@Coldwine75

I dont get it either, how can you be busy if you don't work?

By running around for elderly parents & relatives (sometimes more than set?)

By playing sport / coaching youth teams that need plans and schedules?

By planting & growing veg, having an allotment?

By having dogs / horses / pets that need walking, riding, caring for, vets appointments?

By decorating the house?

By doing some or all of this?

I get up at 3am, run a marathon before breakfast, take my own and the neighbours' children to four different schools, run several companies, take children to elite sports training, cook dinner for my elderly relatives, do all the housework / gardening / life admin, sing in a choir, volunteer at the homeless shelter, nap for an hour or two, then get up at 2am to do it all again

Seriously, busyness is relative. And sometimes, if you are at home all day, posting a letter does require a special trip, instead of passing a post box en route to the bud stop to work

@Subbaxeo

It depends what one means by busy. Another poster said when she didn’t work, she was still busy because she played a lot of sport. I don’t count that as busy-playing sport, shopping, meeting friends etc is a life of leisure to me. Busy to me means more doing things one is obliged to do, not choose to do.

And that's where the problem lies. Busy means you have stuff to do. The value or necessity of the stuff is irrelevant.

According to your definition, I'm less busy now that I'm working than I used to be as a SAHM because I ensure I get some hours every day only doing stuff I want to do.

@Coldwine75 I volunteer for a number of organisations, not set hours. Some days I can spend as much time on them as DH does on his FT job. Would you say I am not busy either?

She does follow lots of people on facebook so maybe that's what keeps her such a busy, busy bee.

Well aren't you a delight.

I used to do a 50 hour week with a kid as a single mum and felt busy. Now I don't work at all but if ive got a couple of errands to run I feel very busy and have probably said to people in passing that I'm "busy busy busy"

It's all relative to the person I think

I tend to find that the less someone has to do, the busier they think they are. For example friends that don't work or volunteer, kids in school, have a cleaner multiple times a week, have a gardener etc always saying they're busy.
Generally the more people have to do, the more organised and efficient they become (I include myself in this).

Wow! Just read your posts back and listen to how judgemental and awful you sound! Maybe spend less time worrying about others and work on yourself.

She’s probably extremely busy. Just the things she’s doing are much nicer than the things you’re doing, OP. It’s not her fault you’re jealous of that.

@Darkdecent PMSL, you can feel the jealousy and bitterness and resentment OOOOZING out of your posts on this thread.

Maybe take steps to improve your own life, instead of posting pointless spiteful threads about other peoples.

You know NOTHING about these people you berate so rudely, or what they do in their lives.

OP, I sympathise. I have a friend like this; we are both retired teachers, I do some tutoring, she does some invigilating. Both have two grown children living and working away and we both offer a similar level of support in terms of help with gardens, house moves etc. We both garden and grow veg and both do two (different) exercise classes a week. She will often text in the morning and ask how I am, what am I up to, but if I reply suggesting a meet, she is almost always BUSY! Very busy week! She is MUCH BuSIER than me.
I’m used to it now, but it used to irritate me. And before someone says she’s avoiding me, she loves me dearly, and I love her.

@BelleClapper

And yet those of us who work ft still have all those tasks to do and manage to fit it in.

It is slightly wearing to hear someone wang on about their busy day when it’s just very normal parenting/adulting.

Slightly wearing to hear people thinking life is tasks and work, what a boring life. Very normal parenting /adulting, leaves lot's of time for busy fun and busy leisure time.

@HappyHappyHippocampus

Why are you so bothered then OP?

Probably the same reason that bothered you enough to type this question.

[quote littlepattilou]@Darkdecent PMSL, you can feel the jealousy and bitterness and resentment OOOOZING out of your posts on this thread.

Maybe take steps to improve your own life, instead of posting pointless spiteful threads about other peoples.

You know NOTHING about these people you berate so rudely, or what they do in their lives.[/quote]
Rather OTT! Had a busy day?

[quote littlepattilou]@Darkdecent PMSL, you can feel the jealousy and bitterness and resentment OOOOZING out of your posts on this thread.

Maybe take steps to improve your own life, instead of posting pointless spiteful threads about other peoples.

You know NOTHING about these people you berate so rudely, or what they do in their lives.[/quote]
Oh the irony!

Busy busy have a cousin like that. Oh she the only one that works lol. !! Every day is busy.

I’m a “busy” person. It’s a social convention to say I’m wealthy enough not to work at the moment without being an absolute arsehole about it. I also wonder if I’m on the spectrum so have had to study how these things work in detail, so I’m not trying to be a bitch.

Lots of people I hardly know seem to want lots of detail about how I spend my time. I find them very slow on the uptake with loads of things (even down to the school newsletter, basic comprehension etc) but I don’t work in a paid job so they find me an anomaly in day to day life.

“Busy” allows you to be you and me to be me.

[quote littlepattilou]@Darkdecent PMSL, you can feel the jealousy and bitterness and resentment OOOOZING out of your posts on this thread.

Maybe take steps to improve your own life, instead of posting pointless spiteful threads about other peoples.

You know NOTHING about these people you berate so rudely, or what they do in their lives.[/quote]
To you and everyone else who's posted saying that I'm clearly jealous, nothing could be further from the truth. I can't say too much or it would be outing, but I have no reason to be jealous of this person at all. She's actually very nice.

What makes you believe my life needs improvement? You don't even know me.

@Briarshollow

She’s probably extremely busy. Just the things she’s doing are much nicer than the things you’re doing, OP. It’s not her fault you’re jealous of that.

And how do you know I don't do nice things? Some of the comments on here are a bit mad. I have an excellent work balance. I enjoy hobbies, I have fun, I stop and stare, I meet friends. I'm never that busy.

Op I wouldn’t worry too much about the negative comments on here. I think you have a valid question, only problem is there is no answer. Some people say it because they are insecure and need validation, others say it because they truelly believe they are busy, but with what I don’t know, and some people say it because they truelly are busy with work and stuff they’ve got to do. Ultimately we just have to accept that just because someone says they are busy, there’s a chance they aren’t as busy as you, and because someone never mentions it it doesn’t mean they are not extremely busy. I agree with a pp though that the more we have to do the more organised we have to be so perhaps an unorganised person is the sign of someone who’s not busy?

I dunno you’ve just been quite condescending and mean on an Internet forum about someone who you purport to barely be close to. It’s odd.