Fresh Start
With the house unpacked, and the children returned, today is our family’s fresh start. We are the same people, with the same jobs and school schedule, in a completely new environment.
It’ll take us time to adjust, to figure it all out, but this fresh start feels like a real opportunity. A new house, a new town, a new parish, it’s a chance to look at everything. I wrote last week that I had to touch every single thing that we owned when I unpacked. Now, I have to touch every single routine.
What do I want our days to look and feel like? How do I want to keep building my relationship with my children, expanding their minds, and exploring our world?
We get so few fresh starts in life. When they do come alone, it’s best to seize them.
Every Single Thing
We moved last week. Although I had the benefit of a whole crew to box up our home and relocate it, once the boxes were in the correct room, the crew left, and it was up to me.
The last several days have been chaotic, waking up early, going to bed late, and little to know schedule. I’ve had to physically touch every single item that we own, and decide on a new place to store it.
We grow numb to the magnitude of our property, to the amount of stuff that resides inside our four walls. We have everything we need, everything that could make us comfortable, entertained, even productive.
Moving always inspires people to slim down, and this move was no different for us. It was an exhausting process, even with the kids away. Although I’ve declared that I’m never moving again, I probably will. Hopefully, between now and then, I’ll be more mindful about the things that I buy and the stuff that I bring into my life.
Natural Conclusions
There’s something about waypoints in our lives that lead us to become pensive. We reflect, look back, and plan for a brighter tomorrow. These endings come at regular intervals and for all sorts of reasons. They’re yet another reminder, in our busy frenetic world, to slow down and think.
I’ve reached one such moment. Everything in my life is about to change, as we set off on a new adventure. As I look back and the years that we’ve been in our current town, I start to see the good in things again. Those ordinary moments that shaped our family, the progress we made in taking care of our home, and the business that I’ve grown all take on new meanings for me.
We do not know the plans that God has for us, but with the benefit of hindsight, we can see the genius of it all. The little, seemingly insignificant events that ended up being turning points. I’m grateful for them all, and ready to see what’s coming next.
Bend, Don’t Break
There’s only so much work that I can do in a week. Every Monday, I enter into the new week with a set number of hours that I want to work. If I work evenly throughout the week, my template leaves me enough time for all the other things that I need to do, with the weekend free to boot.
The problem is that life is never that clean. Although a tightly regimented schedule feels right when written down on paper, it immediately gets mugged by reality when put into practice.
The truth is, no schedule can withstand the demands of our days. Kids wake up sick, urgent tasks percolate to the top of our lists, and my manicured email inbox gets wrecked as soon as everyone else gets to their desk.
Setting unrealistic expectations only increases the sense of drowning that we all feel, when in the moment we’re trying to decide the next thing to do, but there’s too much happening all at once.
The only way to succeed each day is to inject plenty of flexibility. There may be an “ideal” time to get something done, but there are also plenty of other acceptable times, too. Most importantly, there’s a limit to how much you can and should do each day. When you hit that limit, stop, defer everything to another day, and move on.
Scriptural Confession
I went to confession last weekend for the first time in many months. I try to go every other week, but things have been crazy busy. The priest was a visitor, whom I’d never met before. In our conversation, he quoted an obscure Bible verse, Malachi 3:8.
Thanks to my completion of the Bible in a Year last year, I immediately had context. After finishing my penance, I pulled out my Bible, and read the whole chapter.
What’s always incredible about the Bible is how timeless it is. It’s a story, a history, of a nation of people who are just like us. I may have better technology and living standards than they did, but I make the same mistakes.
Despite my failings, God always reminds me of the unfathomable depths of His mercy, greater than any sin I may commit. And if I doubt, I can read the words He spoke to the prophet Malachi thousands of years ago and half a world away, as if He spoke them just for me, “…put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts; see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing.”
Five Minutes
Spirituality is a major component of what it means to be human. We have a connection with our Creator that is far more personal and intimate than any other in the created world. The main channel of building and developing this relationship is through our prayer life. As with all things in life, it ebbs and flows, and it becomes far too easy to let ourselves get in the way.
A prayer life is the cumulative efforts that we make to spend time with God. But prayer is far more simple. If you have five minutes to be quiet, to be still, and to raise your mind to God, that’s all you need.
Building anything great happens one step at a time. You don’t need a plan to get from where you are to your ideal prayer life. You just need five minutes, today, to start.
Potential Energy
The most enduring success that any of us can enjoy is often the result of extensive efforts over time. Years of quiet, diligent work results in “overnight success.” Although those around us can see the finished product, almost everyone misses the tiny wins that led to victory.
Sustaining any good habits over time, in pursuit of a personal goal, is never frictionless. Life ebbs and flows, with easy days and hard days. On the hard days, it’s easy to quit, especially if progress isn’t apparent. When we reach plateaus, we lose the instant feedback loop, and backsliding becomes a viable choice.
In those plateaus, it can be helpful to think of our good habits as potential energy. As I continue to store up daily reps of good choices, I build towards a brighter future. At some point, my body chemistry will be primed and ready to start losing weight again. Would I rather be firing on all cylinders or have to start cold? At some point, my spiritual life will reach spring again. Would I rather meet the change as a springboard to greater virtue, or have to start all over building a habit of prayer?
We can’t always see the change happening, especially within ourselves. The only thing that we can perceive is our daily actions, and the trajectory that they send us on. We can either be primed and ready for the next phase of growth, or start behind the 8-ball. Storing up potential energy now prepares us for the explosion of personal growth that’s right around the corner.
The Genius of Mass
Most Catholics ignore their obligation to go to Sunday Mass. Their reasons are myriad, but it’s a big mistake. Sunday Mass represents the most brilliant and disruptive hour of the entire week.
For 167 hours every week, we have ceaseless demands on our time. We have to menu plan, grocery shop, clean the house, do the laundry, drive the kids around, update the budget, answer email, work, wash the cars, mow the lawn, walk the dog, pick up the house, clean up messes, shop for clothes, open packages, order supplies, and so much more.
For one hour a week, we have to do none of that. We don’t have to worry about the report that’s due, the sink overflowing with dishes, or the cars that we haven’t waxed in nine months. It’s the one protected hour when we can finally rest.
This is a glimpse into the Heavenly reward that awaits the diligent among us; a total absence of busyness. Calm, stillness, peace. This is the genius of Mass, a weekly reminder that we don’t have to toil forever. Something much better awaits us.
Inconvenience
The kids went on vacation earlier this summer without Alison and I. Grandparents Camp is a nice annual tradition for any child. We realized that an additional sleep machine would be needed, so at 1:34pm on a Saturday afternoon, I ordered one on Amazon. A 4:36am the next morning, Sunday morning, it was delivered. That’s stunning convenience.
It’s easy to get frustrated with the little inconveniences that we suffer throughout the day. The slow driver in the left lane, running out of our favorite coffee, the essential but unavailable items in our online grocery order. We have enough stressors in our lives to have to suffer these smaller, but still painful setbacks.
But what if we instead embraced the inconvenience? The slow driver is adding another two minutes to our trip. So what? We could replace the coffee with something else, or drive to a café and pick one up. Missing a key ingredient may be a way to spark some creativity in the kitchen.
When we let inconvenience loom large in our minds, we miss an opportunity to sharpen ourselves. We let a tiny detail derail our whole day. We welcome defeat without the least bit of resistance. Inconveniences happen; we choose our response.
Bottomless Tasks
I start every Monday with a fresh set of hours to work, and a full task list. As the week progresses, more and more tasks are added and a few get checked off. My task list will never be empty, and the sooner I accept that reality, the better.
Although most of us work in the knowledge economy, our labor is a production line. Things are completed, new things are added. There is no end until you change jobs or retire. That’s a good thing in that it ensures our economic viability. It’s a bad thing when we act like just one more hour will get us to where we need to be.
Life is impermanent, always ebbing and flowing. By definition, you’ll always be ahead of your work or behind it. Adding more hours to your schedule will get more done, but is unlikely to have an overall meaningful impact.
The best way to ensure your productivity and success at work is to take care of yourself. Don’t sacrifice exercise or family time for work; it won’t pay off. Don’t let laziness steal work time away from you, you can’t get it back. Accept that your task list will remain full, be grateful for the blessings of work, and do your best when the clock is running. Then, when work time expires, leave the rest. It’ll be there when it’s time to clock in again.