Getting Swept Away?

     I did it again - I allowed myself to get swept away in busyness. Why do I do that?     
     I don’t have the excuse of obligations of someone like Eugene H. Peterson, a world-renowned author and lecturer. Even with his full schedule, Peterson admitted he sometimes got caught up in busyness simply “because I am vain. I want to appear important. Significant.”     
     Ouch. Do I bloat my schedule to try to look important?     
     Vanity isn’t the only thing that tricked Peterson into busyness. He said that sometimes it was laziness. “I indolently let others decide what I will do instead of resolutely deciding myself.”      
     I’ve done that, too, trying to please others by doing what THEY think I should do instead of setting boundaries.     
     So instead of getting swept up with busyness, I want to make some sweeping reforms in my thinking and my schedule. Otherwise, my life may be as futile as Shakespeare described: “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”      
     What a tragedy that would be.