Why Busyness Can Keep You from Meeting Your Spouse

“Time management” and “life priorities” have become over-harped-on subjects in our society. There are enough planning systems, seminars, books, DVDs, and online courses available on this topic to more than satisfy anyone’s needs or curiosity, so I don’t intend to bore you with a motivational speech on tips for time management.

But I would like to share some thoughts on a topic relating to time and priorities that is relevant to each of us single people, and yet is rarely discussed. Namely, how the management of our time and life priorities affects our singlehood, and ultimately, our vocation.

On first thought it might seem that single people are the demographic least in need of a time and life management pep talk. After all, we’re the ones without a spouse, kids, and the never ending list of responsibilities that comes with marriage and family life. It’s sometimes assumed that we have hours of free time piled up, or that we spend our evenings at home twiddling our thumbs in front of the T.V., wishing for something interesting to do or get involved in.

Filling Our Lives

For some single people, this might very well be true. But for the majority of single folks that I know, this isn’t the case at all. Most of my single friends are working long hours at demanding jobs, in addition to taking on extra responsibilities in their families, parishes, and communities, and fitting in as many sports, social events or extracurricular projects as their busy careers allow time for.

Today’s single people are busy—often really busy, and sometimes even overloaded. It’s just that we fill our time with different types of responsibilities and to-do lists than married people do.

On the one hand, the busyness in our lives is a good thing. We should be using our single years to do as much good, accomplish as many goals, and help as many people as we can. But on the flip side, there’s a danger that many of us singles fall into. That is, we fill our lives with so many work related or service related responsibilities that we forget to make time to be single: in other words, to be preparing for our vocation, to be discerning God’s will, and (if we are called to the vocation of marriage) to be searching for and available to the person that God would like to bring into our lives.

The Overload Syndrome

I’m currently reading a fantastic book by Dr. Richard Swenson titled, The Overload Syndrome: Learning to Live Within Your Limits. Dr. Swenson addresses the common problem in our society of being stressed, strained, and stretched beyond our limits by the demands of life, and he offers practical solutions for bringing our lives and commitments back into balance.

He describes how to become love-focused, goal-focused, and God-focused in everything that we do. One of the things I found especially interesting in Dr. Swenson’s book is his critique of the American work ethic, and the tendency in our society to make our work our life, sometimes to the detriment of other important areas of life like spending time with friends, family, and God.

For those who are single, the trap of the overload syndrome can negatively impact our lives if imbalance and over-commitment is preventing us from fulfilling our true vocation. If we are not living lives balanced by work, rest, recreation, socializing, and time with God, then we may miss God-given opportunities to meet and get to know other singles, and possibly even our future spouse.

Single Life and Careers

Single people are not the only ones who fall into the trap of making their careers the focal point of their lives—married people can be just as much to blame. After all, society expects us to work hard and get ahead. However, it can be even more difficult for single people to separate work from the rest of life. After all, we have the time and energy to focus more of our attention on our work.

While every person’s situation and circumstances are different, it is important to keep in mind that making conscious choices to put off marriage and children for career opportunities can result in a dwindling pool of potential spouses when we do begin to focus on fulfilling our vocation. The ideal would be to make career choices that prepare us well for future family life, and at the same time give us ample opportunities to meet others and get involved in activities and with people where we can pursue our vocation.

Don't Let Work Define You

For those who work a Monday-Friday, 9-5 job, you may have noticed that it is often the single people who are still at the office at 6:30p.m., or on Saturday morning, or late on a Friday night. Singles are often the ones asked to work weekends, holidays, or last-minute fill-ins, because of the very fact that they are single, and therefore lack the responsibilities, pressures, and commitments associated with family life.

And in all fairness, it’s not just society at large who is tempted to place extra demands on single professionals. We often (if not usually) do it to ourselves. Because we don’t have a spouse and kids to go home to, it’s easy to stay a couple hours longer, or come in on the weekends, to get more work accomplished. We tend to find great value, satisfaction, and fulfillment through our work. However, Dr. Swenson warns against the trap of letting our work define us:

“While granting that work is a significant part of our lives, it is not the essence of our  lives. ”

None of us gets any more than the allotted 24 hours in a day. If we’re putting in extra time and energy at work, it means some other activity, opportunity, or commitment is being neglected, so we just need to be conscious of how many late nights and weekends we can afford to give up as single adults.

Single Life and Apostolic Work

This is a tough one for me to write about, since I often fall into the trap of getting consumed with working for God and forget to let Him work in me.

As single people we need to make sure we are making time to be ministered to, not just taking time to reach out to others.

When I was working for a Catholic apostolate I attended a lot of Catholic conferences and events, church activities, bible studies, prayer groups—a typical week was full of that good stuff. However, it’s most often the case that I was working behind the scenes at these events, instead of participating or being able to soak in what’s going on around me.

Catholic singles must remember to attend some Catholic events just to attend, for the sake of personal enrichment and to just have fun. For those who are usually in charge, it may seem like a foreign concept. It is important to take some time off for personal down time, fun time, and God time. We all need it, even though it’s sometimes easy to forget that we do.

Finding Balance

In terms of time management, priorities, and following God’s call in our vocations, “balance” is really the key word. I’m not suggesting that all of us single people back out of our careers, commitments, and apostolic work, and spend our days just hanging out with each other searching for the man or woman of our dreams. Not at all—I’d be the biggest hypocrite on the planet if I was trying to suggest that.

My challenge to myself, and to each of you, is that we balance the work, busy schedule, and hectic list of commitments in our lives with some time to just chill. Each of us needs the time to relax, be refreshed, be encouraged, and be open to the opportunities and people God would like to bring into our lives...if we just make the time to be single and available for the good work He wants to accomplish in us.