Business vs. busyness

Casey Gattshall ’15, PPA Finance,
2013-14 Gathright Scholar

Business does not mean busyness, nor is busyness a measure of importance. I must admit, I have fallen for this fallacy virtually every semester of my college career. Every semester I tell myself that this one is going to be different, that I’m going to learn how to say no. Yet, towards the end of every semester I find myself more impatient and irritable, less excited and purposeful than I know I need to be. Sleep, “me time”, or doing anything spontaneous is at a premium. I hardly have enough time to fit everything on my planner that I have committed to doing each day.

I believe it all points to one thing: I am prone to associating busyness with importance and have had that pounded into my head over and over. Albert Einstein once said, “”Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.” Einstein is spot on. Don’t allow yourself to get too “busy” to slow down, plan, think, and even rest.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe there is tremendous value in hard work. In fact, I also agree with Einstein’s quote, “A genius is often merely a talented person who has done all of his or her homework.” You can’t expect to learn something or master it if you don’t put in the time. However, there is a fine line between what Einstein was talking about and falling into the trap that Vernon Law describes when he says “Some people are so busy learning the tricks of the trade that they never learn the trade.” Disassociate business and importance with busyness; I am learning more and more every day that they are not necessarily synonymous. Living your life with intentionality and for a greater purpose is a noble pursuit– living to see how much you can fit on your plate for the sake of seeing how much you can fit on your plate is not.

About Mays Business School

Texas A&M University’s Mays Business School educates more than 5,000 undergraduate, master’s and doctoral students in accounting, finance, management, management information systems, marketing and supply chain management. Mays consistently ranks among the top public business schools in the country for its undergraduate and MBA programs, and for faculty research. The mission of Mays Business School is creating knowledge and developing ethical leaders for a global society.