The New Normal

The nightly news has been running a series called the new normal. The series focuses on how people are coping with the economic crisis and the lack of abundance that many had grown accustomed to.

I have been reflecting on that phrase - the new normal - for a while now. As I have mentioned before, I was blessed to have have been gainfully overemployed for 25 years. I always had more than one gig going at a time. Looking back I am not sure how I managed to juggle it all - but we made it.

I now realize that one result of being gainfully overemployed is I became addicted to action - addicted to busy-ness - and found down time difficult to handle.

And now I am having to adjust to a new normal. The new normal for me is only one job. There aren't multiple roles to juggle, and right now there are no consulting projects to work on.

Without a discipline forced on me from from the outside by an overloaded schedule, I am struggling to develop and maintain a self-imposed discipline. But I am trying. So, here is the schedule of the new normal:

Teach: Saturday morning; Monday night; Tuesday night.

Mondays are devoted to grading papers and prepping for the week's classes.

Tuesdays and Wednesdays are set aside for writing projects (yes, blogging counts as a writing activity).

Thursdays and Fridays are intentionally left open for relationships - developing, cultivating, mentoring, people-building.

Saturday: Teaching Power, Influence and Leadership

Sunday: Sabbath rest. This may be the most difficult day of the schedule. I am hard-wired to work, and my default behavior is to grab something to work on. The idea of "Cease striving - or Be Still - and know that I am God" collides hard with the habitual busy-ness developed over the last 25 years.

Its a new normal.

But its a good new normal.