“When did Squamish become so busy?”
You’ve probably heard this question asked in passing. If you don’t currently feel unpleasantly busy you likely already know of several others who do.
Busyness seems ambient in the air – you can feel it from the feet tapping impatiently in the lineups at the grocery store or the furrowed brows on people in coffee shops waiting for their Americanos to be pulled a little faster.
Friends bump into friends on the sidewalk only to be met with, “I’ve got to run, but let’s talk later, sometime, really busy right now.”
Even recreation can become an ever-increasing “to-do list” of areas we must ski, trails we must run or bike, places we must go camping.
Yet we have more leisure time today than previous generations did only a few decades ago. So why are we so busy?
The issue arises due to the ever increasing mismatch between what we’d like to do, or feel like we ought to be doing, and what we are actually capable of doing with our limited time and energy. The feeling of being busy is increasing for many, but the reality is that it’s mostly a feeling and there are ways that we can start to feel less busy and overwhelmed today.
1. Respect idleness
This is really rather simple, you can do it at home or simply go for a walk and find a quiet place to sit and allow your mind to wander. Turn your phone off or into airplane mode and leave the camera at home.
You might be saying, “I’m too busy to go for a walk and zone out.” In reality, allowing our minds to relax and go blank for periods of time will actually help us to be more productive. Feeling busy impairs our ability to be creative, resist temptations, plan and organize.
Find places that reduce distractions. We are gifted with many wonderful trails here in Squamish that you can explore or parks with benches that you can sit on. Take time to visit them and give yourself no expectations. Allow your mind to reset and fight against any urges for additional stimulation from electronic devices or even books and music. It’s important to recognize that being idle does not equal laziness. In those moments of quietude our mind is doing an incredible amount of work sorting and understanding the information we are trying to digest.
In the beginning you might find these moments of stillness boring, but I promise you that with time you will come to cherish the moments you will have to yourself and your thoughts.
2. Visit awe-inspiring places
Have you ever come back from visiting a wild mountain environment with expansive landscapes all around you and felt calm and in control of your time? Some research has shown that people who have recently been awestruck feel less impatient and have a sense of having an abundance of time and energy.
Find places or events that you consider amazing, inspiring or make you feel elevated.
This could be as straightforward as hiking up the Stawamus Chief for sunrise, watching a storm pass from the comfort of your car at Newport Beach, snowshoeing to Garibaldi Lake and watching the sunset to something as simple as riding the Sea To Sky Gondola and hiking out to the “Chief Overlook” platform or watching the sunset from the Squamish estuary as it casts golden light over the granite walls of the Chief.
3. Walk more
This one really doesn’t need to be complicated. It also plays into the previous two recommendations. Apart from hiking to awesome landscapes and walking to places were you can be still, consider parking a five to 10-minute walk away from where you need to be. Park in the stall furthest from the grocery store in the parking lot.
The benefit to this approach is that you will always find parking. You will feel better also.
4. Beware pre-crastination
Pre-crastination is a word that has come about likely due to the quickening pace of our modern lives. Explained simply, it is a tendency to try and counter procrastination by beginning a task as soon as we become aware of it, which may lead to other more important tasks falling by the wayside.
A good example of this is that many individuals walking into a grocery store will pick up items near the front of the store first, carry those items to the back, pick up more items and then carry everything back to the front, when it would have been more efficient to walk to the back first and pick up items as you work yourself towards the checkout at the front.
Sometimes it benefits you to procrastinate on completing a task until it actually needs to be completed, to free up that time for more important tasks.
Another benefit to this is that sometimes tasks that we think are important and pressing in the moment, actually sort themselves out or turn out to be not important at all after some time has passed.
Focus on what you are doing and don’t let new tasks take the spotlight.
5. Plan unplanned time
A possible issue with recreation is when it becomes a burden and a list of things we tell ourselves we need to do. It can be easy to get caught up in a tick list of rock climbs we have to climb, bike trails we need to ride. Training is always important, but so is allowing ourselves the freedom to use portions of our time however we see fit.
Free up time in your schedule that is unplanned and keep that appointment with yourself like you would for an appointment with anyone else.
When that time arises, make a decision on how to use it then and there. For myself I will regularly go hiking to explore a location with no firm objective in mind. I will share my plans with others beforehand to be safe but whether I reach my objective or not is not important. What is important is just being out there without the pressure to achieve something that you have imposed upon yourself.
There is definitely a time and a place for trying hard, challenging yourself, becoming better and more experienced in any given pursuit or outdoor activity. But you should also allow yourself the opportunity to wander through any of the wild places near Squamish without the requirement to reach a point on the map like the summit of a mountain only to turn around and leave.
So there you have a few simple ways to start feeling less busy today. Winter is losing its long grip on Squamish so with spring quickly approaching the busyness in the air will definitely continue to grow as the daylight we have available to us increases. Start with simply going for a walk out on the trails and go from there.
