Third time's the charm

It's day three of the month. That would be of the month of Elul, the Jewish month prior to the New Year and Day of Atonement. This should be a time of contemplation and reflection on the past year and looking forward.

I've never really cued into this month particularly well. Typically it starts as the summer vacation is ending and then with all the rush into the school year, BOOM!, we're at Rosh Hashanah and that opportunity to take Elul and contemplate is gone.

Not this year, the holidays are late - as opposed to early, they are never on time! So the kids started school and then it was the start of Elul and I noticed this year. I paid attention to my kids needing to wear white shirts to school to mark the start of the month.

And yet, I am already finding the month slipping past me and having to work harder and harder to remember before I head to bed to put my fingers to the keys and stop and think and share.

I didn't set out announcing that I hoped to mark the month of Elul with an attempt to restart this blog effort. A while back I heard news that when a person announces plans to do something instead of helping ensure that it happens it actually leads to the person failing to accomplish her goal out of the fear of failure in such a public way, ironic indeed.

This world of ours, no matter where you live, just spins so fast with so much to do, see, experience, feel, taste, hear, observe, and share. Stopping to do less seems like a failure, an opting out. But I think that when we do slow down just a bit to make more informed decisions and choices we make better, more meaningful ones. Those are the experiences that stay with us and help mold the people we become.

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