The result is stress, which has become the badge of honor of the millennium, observes Manhattan psychologist Arlene Kagle. We lost the idea of the Sabbath as a day of rest long ago, she points out. "Now we’ve lost evenings, nights and weekends as well. We’re too busy banking online or buying clothes off the Internet. Then we complain -- that is to say, brag -- that we’re just so wound up and tense we can barely sleep: four hours a night at most, and don’t be getting me jealous by insisting that you get only three."

     Ask anyone these days, "How are things going?" "How’s work?" "How’s life?" The inevitable answer: "Busy!" The word is blurted instinctively, as if it were simply the most acceptable response. The measure of our worth seems to lie in the total expenditure of our time.

     In a world without a moment to spare, enabled by the marvel of modern electronics and multitasking, busyness has become the red badge of courage and fulfillment, a noble end rather than a necessary means.

     And that, my son, is tragic. For it's not about soul, as Billy Joel sings, it's about time. It's certainly no contest that Americans are miles ahead of everyone else in mining the economic value of time, points out John E. Johnson. But lost in the process, laments the noted teacher of pastoral theology, are our bearings, our sense of proportion, the timeless cadence of life set by "the cycles and the seasons, in the rising and setting of the sun, the phases of the moon, high tide and low tide, snow fall and runoff."

     Instead, then, of using every scrap of available time to play catch-up, do some reflecting, urges Johnson: "Remember who you really are, and realize afresh what is really important. Take stock of the time left before the kids will be on their own. Restore eternity to the soul, get in sync with what is real. Only by seeing where we have been can we hope to have a clue to where we need to be going. And then life may just not be so bumpy -- so banal and profane, reduced to punching keys. Life will once again be anchored down."

     And, hopefully, passionate once more.

     As an obsessive-compulsive personality, my own motto has long been, "If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing." During my years alone at the beach, however, I've amended that cardinal rule to read, "If it's not worth overdoing, don't bother. This assures me enough time to overdo everything on my extremely short list. And to be passionate about whatever I happen to be doing at the time.

     Too many of our problems, I think, stem from people who merely go through the motions, doing only what they need to do to get by. There ought to be a law that says that if you don't care enough to give whatever you're doing your very best effort, then you don't get to try at all. And if it takes getting rid of all the people and all the things you don't really care about in order to be passionate about the people and things that are left, well, that's OK too.

     How sad, though, that we wait most of our lives to come up with a short list.

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Lionel Fisher is the author of Celebrating Time Alone: Stories of Splendid Solitude (Beyond Words Publishing, Spring 2001), which records the emotional and spiritual triumphs of men and women who have found amazing grace alone.  At a time when more of us than ever are living alone, an estimated 40 million Americans at the turn of the century, we continue to seek our happiness and fulfillment, our answers, our very identity in others, points out the author.

In the fall of 1996, he embarked on a cross-country journey in search of what he calls the new hermits: modern solitaires who have stretched their aloneness to Waldenesque proportions, achieving great emotional clarity in the process. He also spoke with their urban counterparts who, through necessity or choice, prefer to savor their individuality in smaller servings. In his book, Fisher interweaves their real-life stories with his own insights and experiences to offer counsel, inspiration and affirmation on living well alone. Celebrating Time Alone affirms that its all right to be alone, to want to be alone, even to be lonely at times because the rewards of solitude can make the deprivations so worthwhile. Fisher, who also writes a column on the art of being alone, invites you to share your thoughts and feelings on magnificent aloneness.  Reach him at beachauthor@hotmail.com.

© 2002 Lionel L. Fisher.  Reprinted with permission of author