Busy? We're Burnin' Out, Baby

by Perlei Toor

I write this piece in half hour intervals, spread between days. I write this piece in the time I’ve got. I write because it feels more like rest than scrolling on my phone or watching Netflix. I write it to fill the moments.

To call them more than moments is deceiving. They are simply moments, not worthy of the label of time. It is the start of November, and I am looking through a calendar of haze to the shining light that is the second week of December. I peer through a forest of meetings, shows and obligations. The second week of December will be the first week I have no major events or deadlines. The week after is finals.

My situation isn’t unique, and I am not writing for sympathy. But, as I have embraced a sobbing friend for the third time this week, their body tense with the stress of obligations, I find myself wondering if this is normal. Should 20 year olds be skipping classes to work on group projects or committee obligations? Should we be leaving parties early to work on essays?

We have all flirted with the busyness of UCU. Some of us have done more than flirting. Inevitably, we have waltzed into the allure of echoing one liners.

our character. The exhaustion is worn with beauty.

It started as a casual fling. Maybe you joined a committee and enjoyed having something next to your social life and academics. Maybe you needed a job, or you were offered an internship. Maybe all of the above. With busyness on your arm, you walk like royalty through a campus where work is currency. Doing a thousand things and more qualifies you as doing UCU ‘right’.

You flaunt your new affair at parties with casual remarks. The bags under your eyes are love marks, hinting at lost sleep. You seductively make jokes about the lack of sleep. “This one keeps me up all night”, you joke. You and busyness look good together. You carry a brand new planner when you’re apart. “Oh this thing? I just need it with everything I’m doing at the moment. It was a gift, isn’t it cute?”

Should we be leaving parties early to work on essays?

Soon, you start to cancel lunch dates to run to committee meetings. Academics become the least of your priorities and you dive further. You commit to more, and you lose yourself in the routine of this new relationship. There is comfort in the busyness. You have less time to think of what’s next, when a strict Google calendar dictates your life. Workout-to-meeting-to-class-to-meeting-to-class-to-group-project-to-dance-torun-to-dinner-to-work-to-meeting-to-sleep. Thinking is for the lazy, for the unengaged.

canceled. More time to work’. You have set a standard of glowing expectation, and the love you flaunted is a performance people have now come from all over to see. “You’re always so busy, aren’t you?”. You nod, and you dance harder than you ever have before, smiling wider.

You panic when the deadlines come flooding. Busyness is only beautiful when it is managed. There is so much more at stake when you see the swinging balance of your position in UCU’s carefully constructed order. Your friends express their concern over your schedule. You take their worries as a compliment.

We all do so much. We burn so hard. Our backs break under the persistence of pressure. We fizzle and pop and crack. We grab desperately at the spark. Everybody else seems to be managing, why not us? We close the door and crash. The sobs echo as that voice whispers, ‘a mental breakdown, good. Now you have evidence of how busy you are’.

So we drag ourselves to classes and meetings. And in those classes, we ask one another how we’re doing. And if the answer isn’t ‘I’m busy’, or ‘I’m stressed’, a layer of silent judgment sets in. You’re not having breakdowns? You’re not running from place to place? Are you doing okay?

We are bright, beautiful, and brilliantly busy. We are so young. We dance on the flames, furious at the race of time, our feet moving so quick that we do not feel the burning of the flesh. We flourish in the waves of it all. We see the inevitable on the horizon.

“I’ve got to run, I have a meeting”, “this week is just so busy”, “I’m just a little stressed”. We speak with a smile. The sweet dew of being busy tastes good as it rolls off the tongue. The allure of busyness appeals to

The fractures are few but increasingly frequent. Sometimes you sleep so little that the brain feels foggy. You can’t remember if this is your 4th or 5th coffee of the day. A friend cancels dinner and your thoughts overwhelm you. You notice you release a heavy breath. ’It’s good they

Beautiful and busy, we all know we are set to burn out. Panicked, we braid the already burning wick long enough, hoping we’ve timed it right. Hoping we burn out right after graduation.