It has come to my attention that there is a little competition going on. We will have all noticed it, maybe you noticed it years ago or maybe there are just spurts of it and you notice it now and then. Maybe you’ve even taken part in this competition. But it’s a phenomenon, a curse of the modern day woman. It’s the art of being busy and superhuman and telling everyone about it. Not content with just going to work each day we must also have been up since 5, cleaning & preparing that night’s dinner, tend to the babies, work out, then come home and bake a cake and paint a wall, and all on the 4 hours’ sleep we managed to get. Social Media is of course to blame, before the days of the likes of Facebook & Twitter, we didn’t know what each other was up to, we were living in ignorant bliss that everyone else was also at home lazing on the sofa.

So ensues the ‘who is the busiest, competition’. Is it all entirely honest?  Probably not, are we trying to prove something? Maybe. Either way, I think it is definitely more of a modern day woman problem – after all, how many times have you seen a man post that he was up at 6 doing the housework before leaving for work? I’m not saying some men aren’t doing their fair share but they don’t feel the need to tell everyone, they are far too worried about the football scores. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve certainly been guilty of the odd ‘busy’ post or bragged about the fact I worked out, I’ve even posted the fact I’m up at 6 for the gym or work (albeit disguised as “yawn, too early” seems less like a boast somehow?!) why is this, do people really need to know this about me? Am I just feeling a need to prove I’m not, god forbid, actually in bed sleeping? Although I have never done the housework at 6am, I draw the line somewhere!  I also have honest posts where I talk about lazing on the sofa all day or doing nothing but watching TV in my pyjamas. In fact, some of my fondest memories are not of being BZ, ( I have abbreviated, I am too BZ to write it in full!) rushing around doing 16 hour days, they’re of times my sister and I went to a bar for a cup of tea and rolled out 6 hours later, several glasses of bubbly down, or of lazing on the sofa with mum eating Easter eggs and watching Ben Hur, or blissfully dozing off at 3 in the afternoon whilst a bit of diagnosis murder plays in the background! These are the things to brag about surely (yes, even Diagnosis Murder, I am not ashamed!)  The social media friends I love are the honest ones, I have one who makes no secret of her desire to nap (we’ve been friends since we were two, she’s never been any different!) and another one who talks about eating hob nobs in her pyjamas! Both these women are wonderful people, funny, kind, they have jobs and kids yet still find time for the pleasures.

These are the posts we should be embracing. I love these people! Imagine if we were competing against these people. So instead of “I’ve been up since 5….blah blah” followed by someone else trying to beat them, stating, “up at 4am, 10 mile run, made lunches, took kids to school, did a 28 hour day before coming home to cook dinner, lift weights and reeeelax (posted at 2am)…..wouldn’t it better if we saw “up at 8am, took kids to school, had a nap, ate 5 hobnobs, had another nap before picking up kids……” Followed by someone else posting (the competition is hotting up now) “had 12 hours sleep, bit annoyed as I normally get 14, ate two packets of custard creams, watched ‘this morning’ had a 3 hour nap’. That’s the sort of competition I could get involved in! Wouldn’t we all just feel better about ourselves if we were a bit more honest? Why have we got to be so busy anyway? And why, as women are we so hard on ourselves. I remember when I was ill, I was still firing on all cylinders, and it wasn’t until I got to hospital that I would give in to the rest. Now don’t get me wrong, I would never wish anyone be in hospital and nor would I wish for those times back, but I remember feeling it was the one time I could lay in bed all day watching TV without the overwhelming guilt of doing nothing. Why does it have to take a major illness or hospital admission for us to permit ourselves some rest time? Let’s just enjoy the restful moments, the quiet times and when a spare 15 minutes is offered up, how about napping instead of jobbing. And what intrigues me is that we are all soooo busy yet we manage to find time to let everyone know on social media!!

So I’m taking my own advice and I’m off to have a little nap and eat a biscuit, I may even partake in some Diagnosis Murder napping!