How many times this week has the important taken a back seat to the urgent? In my life, the answer is "far too many times."

When someone asks us how we've been doing, the standard reply is, "I've been SO busy!" Those four little words magnify our importance to the world: everyone needs me, and I must run like crazy to keep up with all the requests. It's as if Busy-ness is a virtue. In reality, I believe being busy is often the exact opposite of a virtue. It's our way of keeping at bay all the feelings of insignificance that might otherwise threaten to overwhelm us.

I have a very full schedule in the year 2011: work, homeschooling my teens, graduate school, volunteer work. My new year's resolution is simple: minimize the busy-ness. Probably easier said than done, but I'm going to work on it.