HUMAN CONNECTION

The Year of Living Intentionally

There has never been a better time than right now

I have always been a scrap collector. My scraps are pieces of paper. Notes. Lists. Things to do. For some reason I have trouble committing to a system for making what I write down work better for me. In that way I am truly my father’s son.

The good news is my scraps have a heart. They almost always orient around one of the four most important things that need my attention: Family, friends, health, and work.

But scraps are not plans, they are sleep disrupters. Because of their transient nature, what is captured in them haunts my dreams. I regret settling for making them and then inevitably losing them.

In researching how to solve for this I came across one word more often than all others, intention. It was most often used in reference to changing the way we organize how we do things day-to-day and week-to-week. In essence, becoming more intentional in why we do what we do as we move through the world.

In fact it was used so often that it became cliche. But cliches are funny, in that we look down on them despite the deep truth they reflect.

I found both a potential solution and more importantly a commitment for living more intentionally in 2021 in a surprising place: The life of monks. It turns out that monks do what I intend to do. Which is to ask myself at every turn why I am doing what I am doing, and ponder whether there is something else I could be doing instead that would better connect me with family and friends, improve my health and the health of the planet, or enhance my ability to deliver more valuable work.

One of the hard reminders of 2020 is that our time on the planet is criminally brief. What makes that time worthwhile is never losing sight of the value of turning our scraps into true connections to family, friends, health, and work.

My hope is obvious, that it is never too late to live more intentionally. And that after a year of doing so I will have fewer scraps and more memories. Less time on social media and more real human connection. More time in nature and less time in front of a screen. A deeper understanding of faith. And a greater impact on others and on Earth.