Truly, the very best thing about working in the non-profit industry is the work/life balance. My employer truly cares about family. We work with abused and neglected children, so it would really be stupid if the agency weren’t supportive of the family lives of its employees.
The highlight of this wonderful support of family is the fact that during the holidays, our agency shuts down from Christmas Eve to New Year’s Day. You don’t have to choose to use your vacation days over Christmas because the office is closed anyway. And that week after Christmas is truly the most refreshing of the year.
I think it’s because of this wonderful break that I am able to begin this new year with a sense of anticipation rather than exhaustion. I’m not usually all about the goal-setting and resolution-making (despite aforementioned proclamations of plans to train for a triathlon). Last year, I decided to give up soft drinks for the year. I made it until September. A few years ago, I decided to take up flossing my teeth. Clearly, I don’t run very deep with resolutions, though I am happy to report that I still floss my teeth on a daily basis. The lesson here is: aim low. You can’t possibly miss.
I’ve always thought of myself as a reflective sort of person rather than a possibilities person. I am always impressed by people who are able to set ambitious goals and also figure out a plan to achieve them because that process always seems so beyond me. Honestly, I’m impressed with you even if you don’t achieve your goals because you still had the courage to set them in the first place. It’s honestly quite inspiring that, despite year after year of tapering off in mid-March, the gym fills up with people who want to change in January. The human capacity for belief in possibility amazes me, even though the inevitable fact still stands that most people won’t lose that weight or run a marathon by the end of the year.
I guess it’s that sense of possibility that had me itching to write something, anything. My sister-in-law gave me a one-line-a-day five-year journal for Christmas. Each date has its own separate page with spaces for that date in each of five years. You add the year at the top of each entry. After five years, on each page, you’ll have recorded one line summaries for any day in the past five years. So, that’s where I began again, trying to write. And that’s why I’m here, on Jan. 5, blogging about nothing in particular but just trying to string words together. Maybe it’s possible to revive this writing thing after all.
