When I walk across campus and ask people how they are, the overwhelming answer is a sigh followed by one word – busy. We’re college students. We have to be constantly busy, otherwise we’re not doing something right.

We fill our days and our lives with intramurals, clubs, jobs and homework. We take pride in not getting enough sleep and not being home. We make college a competition for who can fill their days with the most activities.

Who are we trying to impress with our incessant busyness?

Somehow we’ve made an equation where busyness equals happiness and importance. Somewhere along the line we started thinking of our lives in terms of lines on a resume and hourly blocks of the day. Because obviously if our lives are filled with things, they must be meaningful.

The reality is that one way or another this is all going to burn. None of it really matters. If we place the value for our existence in the mindless busyness of our days then what are we really accomplishing?

A false sense of achievement and little else. Busy days do not equal a significant life. Refusing to stay still does not make your life important.

The way we fill our day becomes the way we fill our lives. So we shouldn’t strive to be busy. We should strive to live.

The next time someone asks you how you are doing I hope you have the courage to be something other than busy.