Welcome to my new blog! View my old entries from my Friendster blog here.
The concept of "yearon" came to me about a year ago or so in a journal entry of mine. It was among the days when I was trying to decide about what to do "next year" (a seemingly persistent conversation in my life). When it turned out coming to Israel made the most sense for me this year, I worried about it being a "year off." I don't want to take any years off anymore. The year after college I had deemed a year off, and it was one of the most amazing, productive, educational years of my life, and I am left wondering, where did this term "year off" come from? What is so "off" about it? I claim that such years are truly years on. And my ultimate claim is that every year, even the most banal, can be a year on.
In my year after college, I worked in New York City for 6 months in Real Estate Management for Heron Properties and then lived in Mexico (Chiapas) for a month and Peru (Ayacucho and Lima) for 2 months teaching in English. I then worked as an administrator at a Jewish summer camp. The year was unbelievable and confronting and learned and all-encompassing. It led me in a path that 4 years later has me exploring the world in a most practical yet extraordinary way.
I have been living in Jerusalem since September on what many could call a year off. I left a (relatively) stable life in Seattle with community and work and a grad school admission to pursue studies I feel are important. I have come to learn about my people's history and culture and religion and try to better understand my role inside of that. Without this firm identity, I believe I would have always been missing something important. Because what I am doing fills such a deep desire inside, I say it could be nothing less than a year on.
The challenge will be making years after this also years on. A dream of mine is to be in community with people who see every year as a year on creating new goals and dreams for each year (as well as for other set times in our lives).
This week's Torah portion tells of God giving the Hebrew slaves their first commandment - the gift of time. Just as the Exodus from Egypt is to culminate with the 10th and final plague against Pharoah and his followers (if there were in fact any left), the bible goes on a tangent about the creation of the first month and explicitly says that the months are now for you. In other words, the freedom of time was handed over to these enslaved people just as they are being freed...and thus one definition of freedom becomes having control over one's own time.
As we all live in a world consumed by business and appointments and the like, it is easy to lose site of our freedom over time. In declaring a year on, I believe I have given myself freedom and choice over my own time, not to be dictated by social norms, peer pressure, or familial expectations. I hope for us all that we can continually begin the process of freedom by realizing the liberty we possess over our own time and making the best of it...by our own standard. And, as we continually do so...
welcome to a year on.
5 minute Exercise:
1. Enter a quiet space without distraction. Silence your cell phone, close your laptop, and pause your iPod.
2. Write down 5 things you keep saying you want to do but do not get to in life. Start with whatever comes to mind and silence the internal critic. Start small and work toward the daunting if you need to. The goal is to get at least one or two longer term goal on the list.
3. Read over the list 3 times.
4. Commit to completing something on the list this year.
5. Start today. Do something today that sets forth events toward the fulfillment of your goal.
6. Carry on feeling good about taking a step for yourself, in charge of your own time.
The concept of "yearon" came to me about a year ago or so in a journal entry of mine. It was among the days when I was trying to decide about what to do "next year" (a seemingly persistent conversation in my life). When it turned out coming to Israel made the most sense for me this year, I worried about it being a "year off." I don't want to take any years off anymore. The year after college I had deemed a year off, and it was one of the most amazing, productive, educational years of my life, and I am left wondering, where did this term "year off" come from? What is so "off" about it? I claim that such years are truly years on. And my ultimate claim is that every year, even the most banal, can be a year on.
In my year after college, I worked in New York City for 6 months in Real Estate Management for Heron Properties and then lived in Mexico (Chiapas) for a month and Peru (Ayacucho and Lima) for 2 months teaching in English. I then worked as an administrator at a Jewish summer camp. The year was unbelievable and confronting and learned and all-encompassing. It led me in a path that 4 years later has me exploring the world in a most practical yet extraordinary way.
I have been living in Jerusalem since September on what many could call a year off. I left a (relatively) stable life in Seattle with community and work and a grad school admission to pursue studies I feel are important. I have come to learn about my people's history and culture and religion and try to better understand my role inside of that. Without this firm identity, I believe I would have always been missing something important. Because what I am doing fills such a deep desire inside, I say it could be nothing less than a year on.
The challenge will be making years after this also years on. A dream of mine is to be in community with people who see every year as a year on creating new goals and dreams for each year (as well as for other set times in our lives).
This week's Torah portion tells of God giving the Hebrew slaves their first commandment - the gift of time. Just as the Exodus from Egypt is to culminate with the 10th and final plague against Pharoah and his followers (if there were in fact any left), the bible goes on a tangent about the creation of the first month and explicitly says that the months are now for you. In other words, the freedom of time was handed over to these enslaved people just as they are being freed...and thus one definition of freedom becomes having control over one's own time.
As we all live in a world consumed by business and appointments and the like, it is easy to lose site of our freedom over time. In declaring a year on, I believe I have given myself freedom and choice over my own time, not to be dictated by social norms, peer pressure, or familial expectations. I hope for us all that we can continually begin the process of freedom by realizing the liberty we possess over our own time and making the best of it...by our own standard. And, as we continually do so...
welcome to a year on.
5 minute Exercise:
1. Enter a quiet space without distraction. Silence your cell phone, close your laptop, and pause your iPod.
2. Write down 5 things you keep saying you want to do but do not get to in life. Start with whatever comes to mind and silence the internal critic. Start small and work toward the daunting if you need to. The goal is to get at least one or two longer term goal on the list.
3. Read over the list 3 times.
4. Commit to completing something on the list this year.
5. Start today. Do something today that sets forth events toward the fulfillment of your goal.
6. Carry on feeling good about taking a step for yourself, in charge of your own time.
posted by daveb at 2:15 PM
1 Comments:
hello, how are you? im from portugal... :)
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