Being Human & Bibliotherapy, Winter 2022

Happy New Year, Wondrous Human.

Here we are entering yet another year filled with uncertainty and limitation. Not that it was ever any other way, but the thick curtain has been lifted and we are now starkly aware of just how fragile and mysterious life can be.

That might read as morbid, perhaps even defeatist. But rather than deluge you with the typical beginning of the year prompts on goals, intentions, and resolutions, I want to explore this very darkness with you – our inescapable finitude. As finite beings, it is within our boundedness, that we can actually find freedom.

Historically, writing my New Year’s resolutions gave me hope and has made me feel expansive, at least initially. Then as the year progressed, I would either gradually forgo those plans, or I would accomplish much of what I set out to do but I’d sense a subtle lingering sensation that I had become my to-do list and that I hadn’t really been living at all.

This is the price I paid for prioritizing productivity, for tirelessly pointing toward the future as a way to avoid the discomfort of here and now.

Over the past two years, my approach to handling the all-too-confronting truth that I actually don’t know what will happen, and that none of us actually know much of anything at all, was to have “agency.” This is a sexy way of saying I was a control freak. “Agency” meant I was “on top of things,” I was organized and quick and responsive to any mess, any chaos. What it also meant was that I was constantly managing superficially urgent demands. I was diligently clearing my inbox to zero. I was fixated on finally getting my finances in some sort of godly order. I was living in accordance with my never-ending priorities, feeling temporarily satisfied with each thing I checked off.

This was my primal response to the pandemic and accompanying upheaval in our world. I needed to get ahead of it all. Time was my opponent in a wrestling match, and I was determined to pin it to the floor and dominate it for eternity.

I had the capacity for the unknown when supporting others – clients, friends and family. But when it came to myself, I couldn’t quite see that my capacity had shrank.

In the face of our world’s tumult, I observe in many of us this diminishing capacity.

We have responded by clinging tightly to control, or by evading discomfort through that deliciously copacetic experience of endless online scrolling and Netflix binges. We’ve been vacillating between productivity, consumption, and numbing out.

This is not because we are faulty or broken. It’s because reality has been distressing for us, and we want out. The tricky thing is that there is no escape. We are confined by time. Stay with me, as now we’re delving deeper into our finitude…

Everything has an ending. This pandemic will end (or morph into something altogether different). This era of disruption will end. You, my dear reader, will also end.

Though it’s here, in the bowels of bleakness, where the light shines through. When we acknowledge that everything and everyone has an ending, when we accept that we do not own time, we can take a deep sigh of relief. Things will be left undone. Our lives are forever messy. By surrendering to time, we become one with it, and suddenly it isn’t something we need to flee from or rule over.

We don’t have time, nor does time have us. Instead, our lives and everything around us, are unfolding and we have the choice to be here for it all or not. That choice comes in the form of our attention.

When we devote our attention to the things we most care about, we feel time expand. When we put attention toward the things that distract us or give us a false sense of control, we are again at odds with the clock.

Devoting our attention to what matters seems so simple, but it’s hard as hell to do – especially with the seductively limitless options and tabs and data we humans have created. (The internet itself feels like our collective middle finger to our finitude: endless information! Endless possibilities!).

It takes commitment and discipline to return to the present and interrupt the patterns our safety seeking brains get stuck in. We need tangible practices to exercise our cognitive muscles or they will atrophy.

I remembered this at the end of 2021 and wrenched myself from the mud. From to-do lists, to texting, to podcasts, to TV, to internet rabbit holes, I had all the stimuli amplified to block my unease.

Then on Christmas day, I nestled my eleven-month-old niece. I ate dinner slowly. I noticed the gibbous moon suspended in the sky. I read a book until I got drowsy. And I dreamt the most vivid dreams in months. I turned down the noise and reconnected with the tiny moments that made me feel whole again.

Below, I share practices I use with clients, the very practices I dismissed myself for some time. It was only when I reimplemented these that I was able to stay awake…

Practices to Form a New Relationship with Time

Change Your Inner Narrative – When your mind whirrs with anxiety about the future, or comparisons to other people, or tells stories about the past, catch the thoughts and let them go before they gain power. Gently redirect your attention to the present moment.

Cultivate Your Focus – We do not own time, but we do own our attention. Protect your attention every day. Notice when you are pulled toward a distraction and ask yourself if you want to experience time that way.

Set Boundaries – Consider your relationship with your phone, your laptop, TV, social media. Put limits on whatever tends to draw you in most. What time and space is sacred to you? How do you delineate that from distraction?

Redefine Time – How do you describe time? Is it running out? Never enough? Is it a threat to you or is it neutral? Develop a different relationship with time by redefining it. Get curious about the way you think about it.

Accept the Mess – Things will never be fully complete, and everything will someday end. It’s true! Life will both go on and then stop, imperfectly. When we accept this, we free ourselves to live more fully.

Questions to Regularly Ask Yourself:

What in my life receives my attention this year?
What am I devoted to today?

What you pay attention to will define, for you, what reality is.
– Oliver Burkeman

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Book Recommendations

Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman – I cannot recommend this book highly enough, as it’s the inspiration behind this month’s newsletter. Unlike many other books about time management, Burkeman doesn’t offer tips for “hacking” time or becoming more efficient. Instead, he philosophizes (with cheeky British humor that had me laughing aloud) about how we humans understand time as a concept and how that understanding screws us up. He then walks the reader through new ways to define time and how to befriend and accept our limitations as time-bound beings. It’s a delight to read, and you’ll walk away feeling at peace.

Dedicated: The Case for Commitment in an Age of Infinite Browsing by Pete Davis – Davis explores the ultimate millennial dilemma: endless options deter us from long term commitment. We are trapped in a hallway, always looking into different rooms but never fully walking into one. This captures the feeling I get when I spend 45 minutes looking for a movie to watch, only to wind up re-watching something I’ve seen before. Davis expands on this idea by arguing that if we are privileged enough to have a plethora of options in how we live life – from career choices to where we call home – we are actually missing out on the deep gratification that comes with committing to less. The inspiring case studies in this book captured my attention most.

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr – Five different characters, all children, exist across time from ancient Constantinople to centuries later in 2146 AD. We meet Omeir and Anna in the past, Seymor and Zeno in the present, and Konstance in the future. A single book and its strange story acts as the thread that ties each character together. I loved the imagery in Doerr’s epic tale, and I was particularly hooked on Konstance’s character because her life on a spaceship felt eerily realistic. But it was the feeling of timelessness that kept me reading. Doerr exemplifies the universality of the human experience and reminds us that our lives are connected beyond time.

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A Note About My Current Offerings

In addition to working with 1:1 clients, I also help organizations rewrite their narratives, navigate change, and build healthy team culture. If you or someone you know might be interested in hiring me as a speaker or facilitator, you can learn more here.

Thank you for devoting your attention to my writing. It means so much to me. Feel free to pass this along to anyone you think might benefit from it.

Wishing you a year filled with commitment to what and whom you love most in this world….

With Warmth & Care,

Lela