Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Easy Fast and New Year's Milestones

If you were observing the Yom Kippur fast yesterday, I hope you had an easy one. Fasting is no one's favorite thing, but for one day we give up food (among other things) and ask for forgiveness.

New year's celebrations in any faith or calendar system serve as an opportunity to take stock and prioritize anew. Spiritually, it's a chance for a fresh start and a clean slate. Practically, it's a time to look around a make changes based on what's working and what isn't.

We do it at year's end, we do it at birthdays, month or week's end too. We collect our thoughts and create a new strategy for next time, whatever the duration of time is.

What has the empty plate given you the opportunity to see?

Fasting is a way of taking you out of your most structured routine, to free up time to examine how you treat others, what you want to be doing, etc. I spent yesterday journaling, bringing closure to the events of last year and reorienting myself for the coming one. I also dedicated some time to putting my actual beliefs to paper (screen, really).

When was the last time you actually wrote down exactly what you believe?