Pause

 Grading for spring semester bled right into prepping my summer class. Now, even with the summer class up and running, I still feel a sense of “must do” looming over each day. 

And that is something I am trying to both harness and tame.

I’m tempted to power through, to keep productivity high, and to stick to a schedule, ticking off the tasks looming in the back of my mind. Grading. Revising. My summer to-do list.

But the time between semesters is supposed to be a break. In fact, it needs to be a break, not just for my well-being but, ironically, for my productivity as well. 

Flexible schedules are wonderful, but challenging and, for people like me who have seemingly endless pursuits, it can be tempting to confuse doing with living.

That’s where the taming comes in. 

The challenge for this early part of the summer is to not only blend doing with being, but to turn off the voice in the back of my head that keeps nudging me to the next thing, as though the present isn’t sufficient unto itself. 

And that requires me to pause. To assess. To decide what's important now, and what is just noise. 

Oddly enough, it's more difficult than it sounds, but I have no doubt the payoff will be worth it, as I decide what to prize and what to abandon during the gift of these summer months.

What will you focus on this summer? Will it check things off your list, or feed your soul?