The Daily Sabatical

…a small restorative idea from my Dad

The saving grace for me right now is the good weather in London.

Daffodils and crocuses have pushed through the earth. We've got daylight beyond until almost 8pm. And the temperature is above 10 degrees.

Sorry to open with a paragraph on the weather, but really it's having a HUGE impact on my mood.

I feel tight and low level aggravated almost all the time. There have been some delays with the printing of my book, due to the covid publishing backlog. I'm in the middle of figuring out how to be a podcaster, which is a tech and interviewing learning curve. And then uncertainty about the future is freaking me out. 

Of course, there's a positive-thinking way to spin all of that. And let's be straight about it -- a book coming out and a new podcast are two VERY COOL THINGS. I get it. And I know it. 

Plus, generally speaking, I'm a proponent of gratitude and opting for the thought that isn't fatalistic. I figure, whether or not thinking the future is going to be good makes it good, those positive thoughts make my present life feel better and that's worth a lot. 

All that being said, I've been finding it VERY difficult to stay in a glass-half-full head space recently.

And my coping mechanism is WORK. 

When I'm battling with life's uncertainty and wanting control, I hit the books. I create work for myself. And I don't stop. 

I pile my plate full of projects. I set deadlines that are too tight and that I'm too scared not to meet. And I end up doing things like spending several days in a row, sitting at my computer from 9am till midnight.

It's not healthy or necessary.  

I am going to get into this topic more over the coming weeks and months. I'm very interested in how one maintains healthy relationships and boundaries with work and creative and avoids compulsive behaviour.

But when you're under siege of deadlines and to-do lists and can't pry yourself away from the slog for long... here are some wise words from my Dad.

In third year university I felt as if one could never read enough and had to just keep going, reading and writing. I mentioned this to one of my profs, later the man who'd direct my PhD thesis and a friend. He asked me if I took 'a daily sabbatical' -- that is, did I give myself a period of time every day when I did something that I really, really wanted to do. I'd never thought of doing so.

I had wanted to read the novels of Dostoyevsky for many years. So I carved out 4:00 to 4:30 every afternoon, sat down on the sofa in the rented flat, and read the novels.

After many months (of feeling that I had some control of my schedule), I'd read 'Crime and Punishment', 'The Idiot', 'The Possessed', and 'Crime and Punishment'.

That exercise was great for me and I resorted to it several times later in life.

Anyway, you might just give it a try -- to give yourself an hour-or-so sabbatical every day to read or do or putter around with (1) something that you've wanted to delve into (like, you know, study medieval Latin [no, that's for me]), and (2) something that's really different from what you feel you have to do for 'work'. 

I hope his words are as comforting for you as they were for me. Join me in carving out a daily sabbatical, a chunk of time each day to do something you ENJOY. For me it's reading in the bathtub.

What about you?

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