I’ve become very proficient at not-doing. I don’t like that I’m good at it, but know very well that I can come up with a seemingly logical explanation to put something off, or simply get out or something altogether, under the guise of being busy. I’ve also discovered that this is a giant cop-out.

Everyone is busy. There isn’t a person in the world who has nothing to do. If someone tells you they did nothing on the weekend, they’re lying; they, by the laws of existing, did something. Though, whether due to embarrassment, privacy, or an insecure or irrational sense or priorities, it is painstakingly easy — and often reassuring — to talk oneself out of something, rather than indulging.

It is this thought process which I’ve recently grown to employ, and one which I need to stop.

Busy is a word defined by relativity — it doesn’t really mean anything. One is really only as busy as one makes themselves; if you feel that you can’t, or don’t have time, to do something or to see a person, that simply means that item isn’t high enough on your priority list. If it’s important, you make time.

This is neither good nor bad, only a realization. Nobody has an infinite amount of time and should therefore allot time to things that really matter — or at least to how that categorization can be accomplished. Over the last few months I’ve started to discover how I want to spend my time, but am still at a loss of how to achieve that.

Relinquishing time labeled as occupied still eludes me.

There’s a perplexing modern personality epidemic which emanates from a fear of not being busy. Smart phone and gadget dependency have left most of us insecure when we’re not “doing something,” though what we actually achieve in those social media infested moments can often be cast aside as negligible. Why the priority polarization?

“A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.” – Bob Dylan

Perhaps it’s not the what but the where. Toronto is a city that is exhausting to live in. It’s almost prohibitively expensive, and most who live here must work so hard during the week just to get by that by the time the week is over the entire weekend agenda involves recuperation.

Wash, rinse, repeat for the subsequent 51 weeks.

For life in Toronto, this may be unavoidable. Which has pointed me in the direction that perhaps this isn’t for me. Again, neither good nor bad, simply a realization.  But this city also has an inherit magnetism that continually lures me back. Fighting clichés which emphasize the ocean’s vastness — and how many different creatures it inhabits — constantly results in this being a frustratingly circular argument with the self. But there’s also a calm knowing opportunities abound both here and elsewhere, and doing what is right, at any moment, is never wrong.

I’ve always been a big proponent that happiness brings success, and not vice versa. Subjective by nature, happiness can bear different appearances on an annual, weekly, and even daily basis; but finding out what accomplishes it is of at least equal importance.

Reminder to self: Don’t lose sight of the journey for the destination.