I’m Busy, Don’t Bother Me
Each of us face issues and questions beyond our grasp, and we need to go somewhere for answers, or often just to talk. We need to know that someone will listen, that someone is concerned. And where we can help one another find a path, listen, answer, lend assistance, it is to our advantage to take time to the right thing. Whether we realize it or not, the problems, the questions, are important to all of us, or answers wouldn’t be sought — and they are important enough to find resolution. And if we assume what could be called the “Go-away, don’t-bother-me” attitude, they will go elsewhere—or shrink within themselves. And don’t think for an instant that what follows will not be a hurtful memory.
We often are aware of impatience with other people’s questions, with other people’s problems—with an obvious “I’m busy, don’t-bother-me” attitude. But, how do we know that the interruption we snarl at is the most blessed thing that has come to us in long days?
We sometimes simply don’t have enough hands and time and attention to do all that is urgent. But in all things there is a priority of importance, and the course of life is somewhat shaped by the responses we receive from other people and by our attention or inattention to them. One of our urgent opportunities is to respond to a friend when they earnestly ask, remembering that they don’t always ask, that they aren’t always teachable, that they won’t always listen. And often we have to take them on their terms, at their times, and not always on our terms, and at our times. But if we respond to them with sincere attention and sincere concern, they will likely continue to come to us and ask. And if they find that they can trust us with their trivial questions, they may later trust us with more weighty ones.
People are going to go to someone, somewhere. And we had better see that that “someone” is us, when the opportunity is ours, for there will come a time when we will wish they would come, and how do we know but that the interruption we now impatiently put off may be the most important thing we could be doing at this particular time?
When we are busy with things sometimes more and sometimes less essential, remember your importance to others, and avoid the “go-away, I’m-busy, don’t-bother-me” attitude. Make a memory worthy of your days.