Without an oversized calendar tacked to their kitchen wall, Fern Reiss and her family could never keep track of all the meetings, appointments, home-schooling lessons, and activities that fill their busy days. 'I'm not sure they make a calendar large enough for us', says Ms. Reiss of Newton, Mass., explaining that her life revolves around 'two companies, three children, a spouse, a lot of community involvement, a social life, the kids' social life, and volunteering in a soup kitchen every week'. 'Everybody we know is leading a frenetic life', she adds. 'Ours is frenetic, too, but we're spending the bulk of our time with our kids. Even though we're having a crazy life, we're having it in the right way'.
Although extreme busyness is hardly a new phenomenon, the subject is getting renewed attention from researchers. 'A good life has to do with life having a direction, life having a narrative with the stories we tell ourselves', Chuck Darrah, an anthropologist, says. 'Busyness fragments all that. We're absolutely focused on getting through the next hour, the next day, the next week. It does raise questions: If not busyness, what? If we weren't so busy, what would we be doing? If people weren't so busy, would they be a poet, a painter?'
For the Reisses, part of living a good life, however busy, means including the couple's children in volunteer work and community activities. 'We want the kids to see that that's a priority', she says,
Between working full time as a publicist, caring for her home, spending time with her husband and extended family, and helping her grandmother three times a week, a woman says, 'I am exhausted all the time'. Like others, she concedes that she sets 'somewhat unrealistic expectations' for what she can accomplish in a day,
Being realistic is a goal Darrah encourages, saying, 'We can do everything, but we can't do everything well and at the same time'. He cautions that busyness can result in 'poor decisions, sloppy quality, and neglect of the things and people that matter most in the long run'. He advises: 'Stop taking on so much, and keep in perspective what's most important to you'. Darrah's own schedule remains full, but he insists he does not feel busy. His secret? Confining activities to things he must do and those he wants to do. He and his wife do not overschedule their children. To those with one eye on the calendar and the other on the deck, Darrah offers this advice: 'Before you take anything on, ask yourself: Do you have to do this? Do you want to do this? Live with a kind of mindfulness so you don't wake up and discover that your life is a whirl of transportation and communication, and you've hollowed yourself out'.
The author would describe the Reisses' life as
A．crazy and meaningless.
B．tedious but orderly.
C．hasty and messy.
D．busy but sensible.