Addicted to Busy: Recovery for the Rushed Soul

by Brady Boyd

“If I’ve learned anything by now, it’s that kids like Buzz do best with parents who aren’t having tantrums right back at them, or even frantically checking e-mail every five minutes—parents able to listen closely and explain things patiently and repeatedly. Yet this sort of self-control so easily eludes me when I’m in my default mode of scrambling around in frustration over projects left up in the air.”9 And so she would practice—practice listening closely and explaining things patiently and generally avoiding the chain reaction that tumbles forth when a parent responds angrily, judgmentally, to a child. “I’ve come to believe that the only way to break this chain,” she said, “is to keep in mind William James’s idea that what you pay attention to becomes your reality and, whenever possible, to keep my focus fixed on the best parts of people’s natures.”10