Busyness and Distractions and Relationships, Oh My!

These things aren’t nearly as dangerous as “lions and tigers and bears,” are they?

Madison: Hey, Mom! Do you want to be a customer at my café I created?
Me: Sure, honey. Give me just a second.
Hayden: Hey, Mom! Come listen to this song I just wrote.
Me: Okay, Hayden. I’ll be there in a minute.

You know what I do instead? I check Facebook on the computer because I don’t have it on my phone. I don’t have it on my phone so that I’m not distracted during the day. Instead, I’m distracted when I get home when I’m around the people that I love the most. I have every intention to just breeze through my feed, but I keep scrolling, scrolling, scrolling – a like here, a comment there. Fifteen minutes are gone in a flash. I don’t have Twitter or Instagram because I don’t want one more platform of social media I feel the need to check.

Madison: Moooooom? Are you coming?
Hayden: Are you done on Facebook so I can show you my song?

Ugh. Gut check. Because I feel like I’m always telling them to hold on while I finish just “one more thing,” and then I forget I even told them to hold on. It may not always be for social media. Quite honestly, it’s usually not. It’s usually a to do list in my mind a mile long that if I can just finish… then I can relax and spend that quality time with the kiddos.

Distractions and busyness come in so many forms these days. I don’t even have to try anymore to find either. If I find a moment that I’m bored, I can just get on my phone and waste hours without even realizing I’m doing it. If we have a free night where we haven’t scheduled an activity or event, I’m too tired to take advantage of the free time. Oh, the irony!

But you know what’s happening while I’m busy and distracted? My kids are growing up. So fast. In my mind, I don’t want to miss any of it. Now that I have work/life balance, I’m given so many opportunities to be engaged yet I don’t take them.

When we’re distracted or busy, it’s our relationships that suffer. It may not be your kids… it could be your spouse, your parents, your siblings, your friends. If you’re not intentional to foster those relationships, they won’t grow. That’s always been true, but being distracted sometimes will make us forget that truth.

So just stop. Put down your phone. Say no to that extra commitment. Give the to do list a break. Be still. Be intentional. Be present.