Lenten Discipline: Be Present

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, the official first day of Lent. During this forty day period, many Christians choose to "give up" something in a fast designed to remind them of Christ's sacrifice.

I used to try to give something up for Lent. The problem was, I usually wound up just resenting and ultimately breaking that Lenten fast-- probably because I was younger and my thoughts and motivations for doing it were not strong enough to keep me going. Eventually I simply "gave up" giving things up for Lent.

Last year, I decided to transform my Lenten fast into a Lenten discipline that would help me to focus my mind on the faith issues that matter at this time of year. I committed to journaling on a daily basis, a practice which focused and calmed my mind, giving me an all-around better experience. I appreciated Lent as never before, and still continue the practice of journaling to this day.

This year, I have committed to try to really "be present" in everything I do, especially when I am with other people. In our busy and hyper-technological society, there is a tendency both to watch the clock for when you have to run off to the next meeting or class or whatever, and to spend more time texting other people than paying attention to the real person you're with. I have always tried to fight against this tendency, but I think it would be beneficial for me to focus on this as a commitment during Lent. I'm still in the process of figuring out exactly what it's going to mean, but it will probably involve silencing my phone when I am talking to someone, and it may well mean giving up listening to my iPod on the Metro.

I picked this Lenten discipline last night, and circumstances immediately put it to the test. Just as I was about to get ready for bed, my friend A. came tearing into my room. He had just had a fight with one of his close friends and needed someone to listen and help him cool down. I closed my book, listened, and he left in a much calmer state. Then I walked down the hall to brush my teeth, and ran into my friend T., who was having a bad night. I listened to her rant, then went and got ready for bed. Just as I was about to go to sleep, my friend J. texted me, asking to borrow my sleeping bag for someone who needed a place to stay that night. Being responsive to all these people and being present for them was very rewarding, and I'm glad I got to do it, as always. I just hope that last night isn't going to become a model for the next forty days, or I am going to be incredibly sleep-deprived within a fortnight!

Blogging Delinquency- and Just One Thing

I know, I know-- I have been a terribly delinquent blogger. Despite the fact that I promised myself (and my readership) that I would post at least once a week, and despite having tons of free time during DC's "Snowpocalypse" last week, it's been a while since I've blogged. My apologies.

Here is my brief offering for today, courtesy of Rick Hanson's "Just One Thing" newsletter. I'll post a link to the full article when it's online, but today Dr. Hanson urged his readers to enact a practice of taking more breaks. (Maybe like the one I took from blogging?)

The modern, pedal-to-the-metal lifestyle produces chronic stress and tension, and related physical and mental health issues. It also crowds out creative pursuits, friendships, recreation, spiritual life, and time for children and mates. As a therapist, I often see families where one or both parents work 50+ hours a week; the job is an elephant in the living room, crowding everything else to the margins.

Imagine for a moment that you are sitting comfortably somewhere during the last year of your life, and looking back and reflecting. Do you think you are going to wish you had spent more time on the job or doing housework?

Or wish you had spent more time relaxing, hanging out with friends, and looking at the stars?

Because our ancestors actually spent more than twice as much time relaxing as we do today, in between running away from saber-tooth tigers I guess. Go figure.

Dr. Hanson also offers a number of tips for taking more breaks. These include:

• Give yourself permission.
• Renounce everything else.
• Take lots of micro-breaks.
• Shift gears.
• Get out.
• Unplug.
• Make your body happy.
• Go on a mental holiday.
• Keep your stress needle out of the red zone.
• Be grateful.

Good advice, indeed-- hard to follow, though. This will be something I will be thinking more about, as I am currently in the process of deciding what my Lenten discipline is going to be this year. I try to pick something that I've always intended to do, and something that will help me focus my mind on where I think it should be. Will update when I decide.

CollegeHacker, Part 1

Lifehacker is a popular and immensely useful site for people looking for "tips, shortcuts, and downloads that help you get things done smarter and more efficiently." Zen Habits, on the other hand, is about "finding simplicity in the daily chaos of our lives," via articles and tips like the ones I posted last week. Between the two of them, there's a lot of useful philosophy on how to live a more simple and effective life, and a wide variety of handy tips. I read Zen Habits whenever there's a new post and often peruse the archives when bored, and I check Lifehacker...well, actually I don't check Lifehacker that often. I usually wind up overwhelmed by all the articles they are posting on the front page and I haven't figured out how to escape that yet. Still, I have found some good stuff on there, like these recent pieces on The Cordless Dorm and the Top 10 Tools for Better Reading, Online and Off.

What I've discovered, however, is that not all of the ideas offered by these two blogs are directly applicable to my life as a college student...at least, not without some modification. That cordless dorm piece on Lifehacker is very much an exception...and not being obsessive about the number of cords on my desk, it's not hugely relevant to me. Still, I find a great deal of validity in many of the principles offered by Zen Habits and blogs like it, and have for the last two years been experimenting with how I can best modify some of those principles to suit my uniquely collegiate lifestyle. Here are some of the things I've come up with:

1) The Morning Routine. This is probably the number one case-in-point for a concept that I got from Zen Habits and adapted to suit my needs. Since I tend to go to bed rather late, I usually wake up about an hour and a half to two hours before my first class (or internship), then shower, do my stretches, eat breakfast, get dressed, and check email/Facebook/weather/Google Reader. I have grown to immensely value the chance to get my morning off to a relaxed, peaceful start, rather than jumping out of bed, throwing on whatever is closest, and rushing out the door. Since my first classes are never until 10am, it's usually only painful to do this on Wednesday, which is the day I have to be out the door by 7:45am to go to my internship.

2) Exercise. Obviously, this habit is not unique to any blog that I could point you to. Doctors, nutritionists, and many other professionals have been pointing us to the need to get exercise for longer than I could say. Leo's brand of exercise is a lot more intense than mine. I've never been much for gyms, or really for exercise in general, but I have decided to make a renewed attempt to do some form of exercise on a near-daily basis. To accomplish this, I instituted what I call my "daily constitutional," a walk around the neighborhoods near my school. A couple of days a week, the daily constitutional will consist of walking back from the Metro after my internship, but the rest of the time I walk a loop just for the sheer pleasure of this. My rule about this, though, is that I can't listen to my iPod or talk on the phone for more than a couple of minutes while walking. It's all about getting exercise and fresh air, and has become a very nice time for me to center myself in the world around me, outside classrooms and offices and the dorm.

3) Take this Sabbath Day. OK, I don't actually mean that literally. For me, Sundays are often my busiest day of the week. I am one of the planners for Sunday evening worship at the campus chapel, I sing in the choir or play my instrument, and I often help to lead the service. On top of that, there's always homework to do for the upcoming days. But what I started doing last semester is taking one day off each month to completely decompress. No homework, reading for class, group meetings-- just R&R. It's the greatest feeling in the world-- especially if you plan your life so that you can afford to take that one day off without falling hugely behind in your work (which tends to make your Sabbath Day more stressful than it's really worth).

Starting Spring Semester

Thus far I have been very good about my new habits-- I have successfully gotten up at a reasonable hour, always done my stretches, kept up with my nose meds, and even gotten out for several walks. The real test, however, will start tomorrow as classes get under way. If the usual tradition holds, it will be easier to stick to my good habits at the start of the semester, but hopefully I can manage to get them so ingrained that I won't lose at least the more important ones when the workload gets really crazy. Good planning for my school work is going to be key this semester as I attempt to juggle a fifteen-hour internship with a full load of classes. I am going to try to keep up with regular (at least weekly) updates to this blog, but my priorities are my classes and my health.

The last couple of days I've enjoyed settling back into dorm life and really just relaxing before classes start (although several of my classes already assigned readings that I had to work on too). Most of my friends are finally back, and it's so great to get to hang out with them. My favorite thing about living in a dorm is just getting to wander in and out of people's rooms and have extended conversations. You can't really do that in any other kind of environment-- in an apartment building, your odds of getting to know multiple other people on your floor are slim. On my floor, pretty much everyone is very friendly with everyone else. Even if you're not close friends, it's totally amicable, and there's usually lots of laughter and conversation-- sometimes too much, which gets annoying late at night or when I'm trying to work, but I am not sure that most days I would swap the camaraderie that I have here.

Habits

I am trying to institute a number of habits this semester. In some cases, they are things I fell out of doing and want to reinstate, others are completely new. It's not an inherently easy concept, instituting habits. Some people say you need to do something for two months straight, every day, in order for an action to become a habit; others say it's 30 days; others say longer or shorter. Personally, I found last year that instituting a habit of journaling during Lent (40 days) was enough to get me in the habit, but it probably depends. This morning I started the new morning routine I want to reinstate: Get up, go do my sinus rinse and shower, put on exercise clothes, do my knee exercises, eat breakfast, check email/Facebook/weather/Google Reader/Twitter/Surviving the World, get dressed for the day. A bit of an involved routine, but a very satisfying one. The trick is going to be later in the semester when life is busier and I am not able to get to bed early, so getting out of bed early enough to do all this will be harder. Breakfast is usually the first thing to go; showering and checking the computer are non-negotiables unless I oversleep.

One thing is clear, though-- I am going to have to be quite disciplined this semester in order to get through. I have a full load of challenging classes plus a 15-hour per week internship, so the need for good work habits (and the ability to work in short bursts whenever I have time) is probably going to be key. I already have several assignments for this first upcoming week of classes; arguably these assignments (readings) are probably not urgently necessary, but I have found myself to do measurably better when I do most of the readings for a class. I count them as needed, until it's absolutely necessary to skip a reading in favor of a graded assignment. Any suggestions from my readership on how to cope with the classes + internship load and stay relatively sane would be most welcome.