Archives for Mini-Sabbatical
Where the Spirit Leads, Feet Follow: Walk, Baby, Walk
While extreme sports fuel many, the rest of us are not, nor do we aspire, to be in the club. For a lot of different reasons, we don’t want to go “peak bagging.” We’re not fit enough, strong enough or brave enough. Still we’d like to “live bold” and “dare to do more.” The urge […]
Living the Width of Your Life: How’ya Doing on That?
No matter that I’m in the midst of a frantic pace of checking off a long to-do list of work items before I start to pack. A precise collection of words can make me pause. This one did. “I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just […]
Does the Internet Make You Smarter or Dumber?
This was the title of an article in last Saturday’s Wall Street Journal. Two experts answered the question. Clay Shirky says “Smarter”. Nicholas Carr argues “Dumber”. I was struck by some of Carr’s thinking, especially this: “…a growing body of evidence suggests that the Net, with its constant distractions and interruptions, is also turning us […]
The Mini-Sabbatical: Carving 3 Hours Away from My World - Part II
In each of us dwells a wanderer, a gypsy, a pilgrim. On the second day of my mini-sabbatical – three hours carved out of a regular Thursday – I set out once again to do a pilgrim’s job of exploring a new land. In order to have this time out of a work day, I was […]
The Mini-Sabbatical: Carving 3 Hours Away from My World - Part I
Integral to a sabbatical is the longing to break away from the habits of our lives. More importantly, a sabbatical gives a break in a way that allows us to truly see the world around us. Cultivating this art – as a pilgrim in a new land - is as simple as slipping on a […]
Randy Hain: The Man Who Slowed Me Down and Made Me Think
By the time I met Randy Hain for an early morning cup of coffee in an Atlanta suburb, he had already been awake for almost three and a half hours. I met Randy at 7:15 a.m. Randy gets up every morning at 4 a.m. to meditate, pray, journal, read and think. It’s his quiet time, […]
Solitude: It’s Often What’s Needed, But Are You Even Capable of It?
In 2006, then-struggling American indie folk singer-songwriter Justin Vernon left North Carolina with a broken heart and retreated to his father’s remote cabin in Northwestern Wisconsin. There, he recorded the songs that would become Bon Iver’s debut album, For Emma, Forever Ago, playing all the instruments himself. In isolation, Vernon says, he was able to […]