My Year of Shmita: April Update

Oh, April. I feel like the wheels fell off my pursuit of rest last month. Mostly it was an unsettled spirit, not necessarily a lack of physical downtime. I also felt decidedly hypocritical – how was I managing to miss the mark so badly? Have I learned nothing this year? Why does resting – in concept and application – feel so hard? (I asked myself those questions sequentially with increasing levels of angst!)

Why is it still so hard to shake feelings of laziness every time I make space for rest? Why am I still so tired? Is the first key to conquering the general weariness that can come from juggling life responsibilities…acceptance? Truth: I feel tired. Truth: I don’t have to fix this/it might not be a problem that can or should be “fixed.” Truth: I can simply do my best to accommodate the needs of my current season of life.

Truth: There will be a time after this.

While the concept of rest can feel frustratingly complicated, if I choose to flip the narrative, April’s experiences can masquerade as growth. I continued to learn what not to do. I continued to learn that rest – spiritual, physical, emotional – isn’t a one-time event, but a constant pursuit.

Growth always has a nice ring to it, right?

(*Here is a post I wrote about announcing my Year of Shmita and my January, February , and March recaps.)

MONTHLY NOTES

MAJOR THEMES

• Focus. When I feel out of sorts, I lean toward trying to throw everything but the kitchen sink at a problem. For example, my exercise routines felt stagnate. I started out April with: daily walking, daily planking, daily squats, and daily yoga. This was ridiculous. Pick one thing and stick with it, Elisabeth. (I opted for walking! with occasional days including yoga.)
• Dread. I thought about dread – and what this particular emotion might reveal – so often in April that I’ll be dedicating an entire post to the theme. What am I dreading? From that list, what can I remove from my to-do list? Does everything I’m dreading actually need to be done? If so, are there alternate – less dread-invoking – routes I can take to reach the same goal?
• Joy/Anticipation. Too often I focus on what I’m dreading. What if I flip the question and ask: What am I anticipating? What brings me joy? How can I do more of those things?
• Simplification. This fits in with focus. It’s hard to simplify dozens of things. Better to have a few clear objectives than an array of nebulous tasks. Is radical simplification – I read Walden again, can you tell? – even possible with children and a spouse that travels frequently? I think what I’m really looking to pursue (I feel like “achieve” is impossible since it’s a constant and ongoing pursuit) is minimalism by Joshua Becker’s definition – the intentional promotion of things we most value and the removal of anything that distracts us from them (easier said than done, of course).
• Individual vs. corporate Sabbath. A few times in April I distinctly felt the implausibility of pursuing a “disconnected” Sabbath when others are not. I found myself explaining, yet again, that: I didn’t receive your message because from Saturday at 4 pm to Sunday at 4 pm, I turn off my phone. People are all very pleasant about this exchange, but they will, no doubt, write me again in that same 24-hour period expecting a response. Thinking back to the Biblically mandated Sabbath, can we imagine an ENTIRE people/nation pausing life for the same 24 hours? Everyone pursuing a singular goal of rest. It made rest a shared joy, not an individual liability. I think the short answer is my Sabbath will always be incomplete as long as it isn’t a collective experience.
• Technology. I tried to buckle down and get more serious about my time away from tech: laptop in my bag, phone off and in a box from Saturday at 4pm to Sunday at 4pm. I was moderately successful. It’s impossible when John is travelling and I really must be connected as the sole adult. Since our at-home date nights are such a beloved tradition in our marriage, I DO watch movies or documentaries with John most Saturday nights. When he happens to travel over my “Sabbath window” I keep my phone on but read books instead of doing anything on the internet. I don’t feel like I have a fully formed vision of what I want out of a digital Sabbath, but the steps I’ve already taken feel like progress in the right direction. (Spoiler alert: my success rate of making it a full 24 hours offline has been very low in May.)

BOOKS I READ THAT RELATE TO SABBATH

This was a light reading month which I very much appreciated!

• The Bible.
• Walden by Henry David Thoreau (3.5/5 stars) How do I rate this book? Pockets of it are PURE gold. But a lot of it is a slog. The first time I tried reading Walden it was a DNF, the second time I made it from cover-to-cover, the third (and, I suspect, final time) it was an in-depth skimming.
• Cozy: The Art of Arranging Yourself in the World by Isabel Gillies (3/5 stars) This book started off well and I thought it was destined to garner 5 stars but fell flat by the halfway point. Was it too long? Too meandering? I’m not quite sure what went wrong, but it didn’t give off cozy vibes by the end. I’m still glad I read it as it inspired me to start a list of things that make ME cozy which feels like a pretty great outcome.
• Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things by Adam Grant (4.5/5 stars) This book was full of interesting case studies about grit, determination, and working smarter not harder. Definitely inspirational. I found it engaging from start to finish. Do I remember a lot from it? Not particularly, but can see this being a great annual re-read for motivation to get unstuck from life “ruts.”
• Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked by Adam Alter (3.5/5 stars) This was a hard book to rate – should I round up to 4 or round down to 3? (I went with rounding down to 3). A lot of time and page space goes to discussing the physiology and psychology behind all addiction (including drugs) – most notably video games and cell phones. This was an easy-to-read and engaging book, but I felt like I was left wanting more. It was an interesting overview of addiction at large and how that plays into our obsession with screens; I don’t regret making time to read it.

I wrote down a lot of quotes from the books I mentioned above; this isn’t an exhaustive list of those quotes – nor does it necessarily represent my absolute favourites – but it’s a good sampling of the type of inspiration I was drawn to…

QUOTES

The Bible. Philippians 4:8 – Whatever is true, gracious, beautiful, noble, authentic, lovely, praiseworthy, just, pure, and commendable – think/remember/fill my mind and dwell on these things. [As I summarized this verse in my notes: Think on the best, not the worst.]

Walden – Henry David Thoreau

• The life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others?
• …the cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.
• This spending of the best part of one’s life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it, reminds me of the Englishman who went to India to make a fortune first, in order that he might return to England and live the life of a poet.
• …my greatest skill has been to want but little.
• There were times when I could not afford to sacrifice the bloom of the present moment to any work, whether of the head or hands…I grew in those seasons like corn in the night.
• I love a broad margin to my life.
• Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears…
• The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise.
• Which would have advanced the most at the end of a month – the boy who had made his own jackknife from the ore which he had dug and smelted, reading as much as would be necessary for this – or the boy who had attended the lectures on metallurgy at the institute in the meanwhile, and received a Rogers’ penknife from his father? Which would be the most likely to cut his fingers?
• Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things.
• Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life? We are determined to be starved before we are hungry. Men say that a stitch in time saves nine, and so they take a thousand stitches today to save nine to-morrow.
• I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.
• It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves. I had not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pond-side; and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it is still quite distinct…the surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels.
• In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex…
• Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, it if be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion.

Hidden Potential – Adam Grant

• Personality is not your destiny – it’s your tendency.
• …seeking advice doesn’t reveal a lack of confidence. It reflects respect for another person’s competence.
• It’s easy for people to be critics or cheerleaders. It’s harder to get them to be coaches. A critic sees your weaknessess and attacks your worst self. A cheerleader sees your strengths and celebrates your best self. A coach sees your potential and helps you become a better version of yourself.
• [Perfectionists]…fail to realize that the purpose of reviewing your mistakes isn’t to shame your past self. It’s to educate your future self.
• Relaxing is not a waste of time; it’s an investment in well-being.