Schedule Joy Quotes

Our culture encourages us to plan every moment and fill our schedules with one activity and obligation after the next, with no time to just be. But the human body and mind require downtime to rejuvenate. I have found my greatest moments of joy and peace just sitting in silence, and then I take that joy and peace with me out into the world.

Sadly, our educational system, as well as many of the methods that profess to treat trauma, tend to bypass this emotional-engagement system and focus instead on recruiting the cognitive capacities of the mind. Despite the well-documented effects of anger, fear, and anxiety on the ability to reason, many programs continue to ignore the need to engage the safety system of the brain before trying to promote new ways of thinking. The last things that should be cut from school schedules are chorus, physical education, recess, and anything else involving movement, play, and joyful engagement.

Most people live their lives as if the end were always years away. They measure their days in love, laughter, accomplishment, and loss. There are moments of sunshine and storm. There are schedules, phone calls, careers, anxieties, joys, exotic trips, favorite foods, romance, shame, and hunger. A person can be defined by clothing, the smell of his breath, the way she combs her hair, the shape of his torso, or even the company she keeps. All over the world, children love their parents and yearn for love in return. They revel in the touch of parental hands on their faces. And even on the worst of days, each person has dreams about the future-dreams that sometimes come true. Such is life. Yet life can end in less time than it takes to draw one breath.

Chronos is clocks, deadlines, watches, calendars, agendas, planners, schedules, beepers. Chronos is time at her worst. Chronos keeps track. ...Chronos is the world's time. Kairos is transcendence, infinity, reverence, joy, passion, love, the Sacred. Kairos is intimacy with the Real. Kairos is time at her best. ...Kairos is Spirit's time. We exist in chronos. We long for kairos. That's our duality. Chronos requires speed so that it won't be wasted. Kairos requires space so that it might be savored. We do in chronos. In kairos we're allowed to be ... It takes only a moment to cross over from chronos into kairos, but it does take a moment. All that kairos asks is our willingness to stop running long enough to hear the music of the spheres.

There is something joyful about storms that interrupt routine. Snow or freezing rain suddenly releases you from expectations, performance demands, and the tyranny of appointments and schedules. And unlike illness, it is largely a corporate rather than individual experience. One can almost hear a unified sigh rise from the nearby city and surrounding countryside where Nature has intervened to give respite to the weary humans slogging it out within her purview. All those affected this way are united by a mutual excuse, and the heart is suddenly and unexpectedly a little giddy. There will be no apologies needed for not showing up to some commitment or other. Everyone understands and shares in this singular justification, and the sudden alleviation of the pressure to produce makes the heart merry.

In the average home there is much work to be done, and God does not approve of laziness. But beware thinking that your schedule (whether it is a homeschooling schedule or feeding-the-baby schedule) is inspired by the Holy Spirit. Life in our homes should be characterized by joy and thanksgiving so that children are taught and nourished in a way that takes their souls into account.

People can learn to control and change their behavior, but only if they feel safe enough to experiment with new solutions. The body keeps the score: If trauma is encoded in heartbreaking and gut-wrenching sensations, then our first priority is to help people move out of fight-or-flight states, reorganize their perception of danger, and manage relationships. Where traumatized children are concerned, the last things we should be cutting from school schedules are the activities that can do precisely that: chorus, physical education, recess, and anything else that involves movement, play, and other forms of joyful engagement.

As A. J. Swoboda so beautifully said, “Sabbath is a scheduled weekly reminder that we are not what we do; rather, we are who we are loved by.

There is something joyful about storms that interrupt routine. Snow or freezing rain suddenly releases you from expectations, performance demands, and the tyranny of appointments and schedules.

Set your goals and along the way learn ride the chaotic waves of the universe without resistance. Its scheduling and course may not be what you hoped for or anticipated, but embrace it anyway with sincere welcoming joy. At the end of the day it will inevitably turn out to be the ideal timing and path all divinely designed for you.

She thought of a night when Troy had been playing all the way out at Homebush in a tournament that ran so far behind schedule he didn’t even get onto the court until midnight. Stan was with Troy, Joy was at home with the other kids. Logan was worryingly sick with a temperature. She didn’t sleep that night. She baked thirty cupcakes for Brooke’s birthday the next day in between tending to Logan, she did three loads of laundry, she did the accounts, and she did Troy’s history assignment on the Great Wall of China. She got seven out of ten for the assignment (she was still furious about that; she’d deserved a nine). When she thought of that long night, it was like remembering an extraordinarily tough match where she’d prevailed. Except there was no trophy or applause. The only recognition you got for surviving a night like that came from other mothers. Only they understood the epic nature of your trivial achievements.

Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert talks about this phenomenon in his 2006 book, Stumbling on Happiness. “The greatest achievement of the human brain is its ability to imagine objects and episodes that do not exist in the realm of the real,” he writes. “The frontal lobe—the last part of the human brain to evolve, the slowest to mature, and the first to deteriorate in old age—is a time machine that allows each of us to vacate the present and experience the future before it happens.” This time travel into the future—otherwise known as anticipation—accounts for a big chunk of the happiness gleaned from any event. As you look forward to something good that is about to happen, you experience some of the same joy you would in the moment. The major difference is that the joy can last much longer. Consider that ritual of opening presents on Christmas morning. The reality of it seldom takes more than an hour, but the anticipation of seeing the presents under the tree can stretch out the joy for weeks. One study by several Dutch researchers, published in the journal Applied Research in Quality of Life in 2010, found that vacationers were happier than people who didn’t take holiday trips. That finding is hardly surprising. What is surprising is the timing of the happiness boost. It didn’t come after the vacations, with tourists bathing in their post-trip glow. It didn’t even come through that strongly during the trips, as the joy of travel mingled with the stress of travel: jet lag, stomach woes, and train conductors giving garbled instructions over the loudspeaker. The happiness boost came before the trips, stretching out for as much as two months beforehand as the holiday goers imagined their excursions. A vision of little umbrella-sporting drinks can create the happiness rush of a mini vacation even in the midst of a rainy commute. On some level, people instinctively know this. In one study that Gilbert writes about, people were told they’d won a free dinner at a fancy French restaurant. When asked when they’d like to schedule the dinner, most people didn’t want to head over right then. They wanted to wait, on average, over a week—to savor the anticipation of their fine fare and to optimize their pleasure. The experiencing self seldom encounters pure bliss, but the anticipating self never has to go to the bathroom in the middle of a favorite band’s concert and is never cold from too much air conditioning in that theater showing the sequel to a favorite flick. Planning a few anchor events for a weekend guarantees you pleasure because—even if all goes wrong in the moment—you still will have derived some pleasure from the anticipation. I love spontaneity and embrace it when it happens, but I cannot bank my pleasure solely on it. If you wait until Saturday morning to make your plans for the weekend, you will spend a chunk of your Saturday working on such plans, rather than anticipating your fun. Hitting the weekend without a plan means you may not get to do what you want. You’ll use up energy in negotiations with other family members. You’ll start late and the museum will close when you’ve only been there an hour. Your favorite restaurant will be booked up—and even if, miraculously, you score a table, think of how much more you would have enjoyed the last few days knowing that you’d be eating those seared scallops on Saturday night!

When I was a kid, summers were the most glorious time of life. Because my parents believed in hands-off, free-range parenting, I’d usually be out the door before ten and wouldn’t return until dinner. There were no cell phones to keep track of me and whenever my mom called a neighbor to ask where I was, the neighbor was often just as clueless as to her own child’s whereabouts. In fact, there was only one rule as far as I could tell: I had to be home at half past five, since my parents liked to eat dinner as a family. I can’t remember exactly how I used to spend those days. I have recollections in snapshot form: building forts or playing king of the hill on the high part of the jungle gym or chasing after a soccer ball while attempting to score. I remember playing in the woods, too. Back then, our home was surrounded by undeveloped land, and my friends and I would have dirt-clod wars or play capture the flag; when we got BB guns, we could spend hours shooting cans and occasionally shooting at each other. I spent hours exploring on my bicycle, and whole weeks would pass where I’d wake every morning with nothing scheduled at all. Of course, there were kids in the neighborhood who didn’t lead that sort of carefree existence. They would head off to camp or participate in summer leagues for various sports, but back then, kids like that were the minority. These days, kids are scheduled from morning to night because parents have demanded it, and London has been no exception. But how did it happen? And why? What changed the outlook of parents in my generation? Peer pressure? Living vicariously through a child’s success? Résumé building for college? Or was it simply fear that if their kids were allowed to discover the world on their own, nothing good would come of it? I don’t know. I am, however, of the opinion that something has been lost in the process: the simple joy of waking in the morning and having nothing whatsoever to do.

At the core, making space for creativity traces back to permission, to the idea that feeding our souls is not a waste. Creativity is not a waste of time, or money, or resources. It’s not a waste of space in our schedules, our minds, our homes. If you view creativity as a selfish act, you will always struggle to justify making time for it. If you believe pursuing creativity is self-serving, it’s going to be the first thing you cut from your life in busy seasons.

Here are the radical words I have been alluding to: "Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:10). I must admit that I don't always greet God's kingdom with delight. There are things that I want in my life, and I not only want them, but I know how, when, and where I want them! I want my life to be comfortable. I want my schedule to be unobstructed and predictable. I want the people around me to esteem and appreciate me. I want control over the situations and relationships in my life. I want people to affirm my opinions and follow my lead. I want the pleasures that I find entertaining to be available to me. I want the ministry initiatives I direct to be well received and successful. I want my children to appreciate that they have been blessed with me as their father. I want my wife to be a joyful and committed supporter of my dreams. I don't want to suffer. I don't want to live without. I don't want to have to deal with personal defeat or ministry failure. What I am saying is that I want my kingdom to come and my will to be done.

Despite the well-documented effects of anger, fear, and anxiety on the ability to reason, many programs continue to ignore the need to engage the safety system of the brain before trying to promote new ways of thinking. The last things that should be cut from school schedules are chorus, physical education, recess, and anything else involving movement, play, and joyful engagement. When children are oppositional, defensive, numbed out, or enraged, it’s also important to recognize that such “bad behavior” may repeat action patterns that were established to survive serious threats, even if they are intensely upsetting or off-putting.

Now I remember, this happened to me before. This is why I left. You have begun to find your answers. Although it will seem difficult the rewards will be great. Exercise your human mind as fully as possible knowing that it is only an exercise. Build beautiful artifacts, solve problems, explore the secrets of the physical universe, savor the input from all the senses, filled with joy and sorrow and laughter, empathy, compassion, and tote the emotional memory in your travel bag. I remember where I came from, and how I became human, why I hung around, and now my final departure's scheduled. This way out, escaping velocity. Not just eternity, but Infinity.

1. Choose to love each other even in those moments when you struggle to like each other. Love is a commitment, not a feeling. 2. Always answer the phone when your husband/wife is calling and, when possible, try to keep your phone off when you’re together with your spouse. 3. Make time together a priority. Budget for a consistent date night. Time is the currency of relationships, so consistently invest time in your marriage. 4. Surround yourself with friends who will strengthen your marriage, and remove yourself from people who may tempt you to compromise your character. 5. Make laughter the soundtrack of your marriage. Share moments of joy, and even in the hard times find reasons to laugh. 6. In every argument, remember that there won’t be a winner and a loser. You are partners in everything, so you’ll either win together or lose together. Work together to find a solution. 7. Remember that a strong marriage rarely has two strong people at the same time. It’s usually a husband and wife taking turns being strong for each other in the moments when the other feels weak. 8. Prioritize what happens in the bedroom. It takes more than sex to build a strong marriage, but it’s nearly impossible to build a strong marriage without it. 9. Remember that marriage isn’t 50–50; divorce is 50–50. Marriage has to be 100–100. It’s not splitting everything in half but both partners giving everything they’ve got. 10. Give your best to each other, not your leftovers after you’ve given your best to everyone else. 11. Learn from other people, but don’t feel the need to compare your life or your marriage to anyone else’s. God’s plan for your life is masterfully unique. 12. Don’t put your marriage on hold while you’re raising your kids, or else you’ll end up with an empty nest and an empty marriage. 13. Never keep secrets from each other. Secrecy is the enemy of intimacy. 14. Never lie to each other. Lies break trust, and trust is the foundation of a strong marriage. 15. When you’ve made a mistake, admit it and humbly seek forgiveness. You should be quick to say, “I was wrong. I’m sorry. Please forgive me.” 16. When your husband/wife breaks your trust, give them your forgiveness instantly, which will promote healing and create the opportunity for trust to be rebuilt. You should be quick to say, “I love you. I forgive you. Let’s move forward.” 17. Be patient with each other. Your spouse is always more important than your schedule. 18. Model the kind of marriage that will make your sons want to grow up to be good husbands and your daughters want to grow up to be good wives. 19. Be your spouse’s biggest encourager, not his/her biggest critic. Be the one who wipes away your spouse’s tears, not the one who causes them. 20. Never talk badly about your spouse to other people or vent about them online. Protect your spouse at all times and in all places. 21. Always wear your wedding ring. It will remind you that you’re always connected to your spouse, and it will remind the rest of the world that you’re off limits. 22. Connect with a community of faith. A good church can make a world of difference in your marriage and family. 23. Pray together. Every marriage is stronger with God in the middle of it. 24. When you have to choose between saying nothing or saying something mean to your spouse, say nothing every time. 25. Never consider divorce as an option. Remember that a perfect marriage is just two imperfect people who refuse to give up on each other. FINAL

Trains are about getting from point A to point B in a timely, efficient manner. They rumble through town on a predetermined path, with a sequence of stops to make and a schedule to keep. A train has a plan, and the plan moves in one direction, with little regard for anyone or anything beyond its path. It’s no surprise that cities and towns turn their worst side to the tracks. A park, on the other hand, is the opposite. A park has no agenda and makes no exclusions. It is welcoming, lovely, and nurturing. It is a forum for life; a congregation of unscheduled joy, laughter, and leisure. Cities bring their most important events to parks: weddings, recreation, picnics, relaxation. People bring life to the park because the park invites them in, no matter who they are. No ticket required. No schedule to obey. The parks, in a word, are turned outward; the tracks are turned inward. The parks give unceasingly to their community; the train rumbles through. This is a picture of how we can approach our loves: We can choose to be trains or parks. We can plan our lives with rigid precision, ignore everyone who isn’t sitting beside us, and simply forge ahead with our own agenda. Or, we can be present in our lives and open ourselves up to the chaos of love. I’m sure we can all think of examples of people in our own lives, whether married or not, who operate as trains and who operate as parks.

I was dissatisfied with my 1967 manuscript and decided to rewrite the book. It was the first of September, and I said to myself, “If I do not have the finished manuscript in Faber’s hands by September 10, I shall have to kill myself.” And under this threat, I started writing. Within a day or so, the feeling of threat had disappeared, and the joy of writing took over. I was no longer using drugs, but it was a time of extraordinary elation and energy. It seemed to me almost as though the book were being dictated, everything organizing itself swiftly and automatically. I would sleep for just a couple of hours a night. And a day ahead of schedule, on September 9, I took the book to Faber & Faber. Their offices were in Great Russell Street, near the British Museum, and after dropping off the manuscript, I walked over to the museum. Looking at artifacts there — pottery, sculptures, tools, and especially books and manuscripts, which had long outlived their creators — I had the feeling that I, too, had produced something. Something modest, perhaps, but with a reality and existence of its own, something that might live on after I was gone. I have never had such a strong feeling, a feeling of having made something real and of some value, as I did with that first book, which was written in the face of such threats from Friedman and, for that matter, from myself. Returning to New York, I felt a sense of joyousness and almost blessedness. I wanted to shout, “Hallelujah!” but I was too shy. Instead, I went to concerts every night — Mozart operas and Fischer-Dieskau singing Schubert — feeling exuberant and alive.

Sadly, our educational system, as well as many of the methods that profess to treat trauma, tend to bypass this emotional-engagement system and focus instead on recruiting the cognitive capacities of the mind. Despite the well-documented effects of anger, fear, and anxiety on the ability to reason, many programs continue to ignore the need to engage the safety system of the brain before trying to promote new ways of thinking. The last things that should be cut from school schedules are chorus, physical education, recess, and anything else involving movement, play, and joyful engagement. When children are oppositional, defensive, numbed out, or enraged, it’s also important to recognize that such “bad behavior” may repeat action patterns that were established to survive serious threats, even if they are intensely upsetting or off-putting.

Precollege program orientation was scheduled for two days after Watson arrived, and I discovered a few things in the meantime. 1. My uncle Leander has a memory like a steel trap. He took Watson and I to the all-you-can-eat Indian buffet around the corner from our flat, to the antiquarian bookshop to look at first editions of Faulkner, to the teahouse painted to look like a starry night, all of which Watson had mentioned in passing that he loved, and whose repetition now left Watson in a state of expansive joy. 2. I should have found this delightful. I did not. As, throughout all of this, Leander referred to Watson as my boyfriend. 2b. Loudly. 2c. He did this as often as he could. 2d. To wit: "A latte for my niece and her young man"; "Charlotte, wasn't that your Jamie's favorite, A Light in August? Faulkner's later work -"; "Child, go and get your boyfriend another napkin, we aren't barbarians/" And then that smile Leander had, something like a wolf after eating a fat peasant child.

Beside him Mr. Harris folded his morning newspaper and held it out to Claude. "Seen this yet?" "No." "Don't read it," Mr. Harris said, folding the paper once more and sliding it under his rear. "It will only upset you, son." "It's a wicked paper... " Claude agreed, but Mr. Harris was overspeaking him. "It's the big black words that do it. The little grey ones don't matter very much, they're just fill-ins they take everyday from the wires. They concentrate their poison in the big black words, where it will radiate. Of course if you read the little stories too you've got sure proof that every word they wrote above, themselves, was a fat black lie, but by then you've absorbed a thousand greyer ones, and where and how to check on those? This way the mind deteriorates. The best way you can save yourself is not to read it, son." "No, I... " "That's right, if you're not careful," Mr. Harris went on, blue-eyed, red-faced, "you find yourself pretty soon hating everyone but God, the Babe, and a few dead senators. That's no fun. Men aren't so bad as that." "No." "That's right, you begin to worry about anyone who opens his mouth except to say ho it looks like rain, let's bowl. Otherwise you wonder what the hell he's trying to prove, or undermine. If he asks what time it is, you wonder what terrible thing is scheduled to happen, where it will happen, when. You can't even stand to be asked how you feel today - he's probably looking at the bumps on you, they may have grown more noticeable overnight. Soon you feel you should apologize for standing there where he can watch you dying in front of him, he'd rather for you to carry your head around in a little plaid bag, like your bowling ball. There's no joy in that. Men aren't so very bad." Mr. Harris paused to remove his Panama hat. Water seeped from his knobby forehead, which he mopped with a damp handkerchief. "I've offended you, son," he said. "Not at all, I entirely agree with you." Mr. Harris replaced his hat, folded his handkerchief. "I shouldn't shoot off this way," he said. "I read too much." "No, no. You're right...

There is something joyful about storms, that interrupt routine. Snow or freezing rain suddenly releases you from expectations, performance demands, and the tyranny of appointments and schedules. And unlike illness, it is largely a corporate, rather than individual experience. One could almost hear a unified sigh rise from the nearby city and surrounding countryside, where nature has intervened to give respite to the weary humans slogging it out within her purview. All those affected this way are united by a mutual excuse, and the heart is suddenly, and unexpectedly, a little giddy. There will be no apologies needed for not showing up to some commitment or other. Everyone understands and shares in this singular justification, and the sudden alleviation of the pressure to produce makes the heart merry. ... Even if it's hardly more than a day or two, somehow each person feels like the master of his or her own world, simply because those little droplets of water freeze as they hit the ground. Even commonplace activities become extraordinary. Routine choices become adventures and are often experienced with a sense of heightened clarity.

We kept our fingers crossed and eagerly scanned the newspapers and magazines for news of an engagement between Diana and Charles. Then, late in the morning of February 24, I answered the telephone in my bedroom and heard the voice of a friend in London… “Mary, it’s Dena. Your girl made it!” I knew she meant that Diana’s engagement to Prince Charles had just been announced. I gave a big shout and literally jumped for joy, banging my head on the low dormer ceiling. I couldn’t have been prouder of Diana if I’d been her mother. I was so happy for her I could have burst! I knew how desperately she had wished for this outcome. The past fall, she had told me that she would “simply die” if the romance didn’t work out. How wonderful that her dream had come true. Almost immediately, a mischievous picture popped into my mind of the future and royal Diana, scheduled for an official day of handshaking, ribbon cutting, or tree planting and wishing she could have a friend call to cancel those tedious engagements. As Princess of Wales, she would not be able to cancel on short notice, if at all, as she had when she was baby-sitting for me. I wondered how the lively, spontaneous, and very young Diana would adjust to her official duties. I felt a bit sorry for her as I dimly realized how rigid and structured her new life might be.

This is the part of the book where the author usually sums it all up in a conclusion chapter and announces, “I did it!” I suppose I could have titled it “The Finale,” but that’s just not me. I don’t think you ever reach a point in life (or in writing!) where you get to say that. It ain’t over till it’s over. I want to be an eternal student, always pushing myself to learn more, fear less, fight harder. What lies in the future? Truthfully, I don’t know. For some people, that’s a scary thought. They like their life mapped out and scheduled down to the second. Not me. Not anymore. I take comfort in knowing not everything is definite. There’s where you find the excitement, in the unknown, uncharted, spaces. If I take the lead in my life, I expect that things will keep changing, progressing, moving. That’s the joy for me. Where will I go next? What doors will open? What doors will close? All I can tell you is that I will be performing and connecting with people--be it through dance, movies, music, or speaking. I want to inspire and create. I love the phrase “I’m created to create.” That’s what I feel like, and that’s what makes me the happiest. I’m building a house right now--my own extreme home makeover. I love the process of tearing something down and rebuilding it, creating something from nothing and bringing my artistic vision to it. I will always be someone who likes getting his hands dirty. But the blueprint of my life has completely changed from the time I was a little boy dreaming about fame. It’s broadened and widened. I want variety in my life; I like my days filled with new and different things. I love exploring the world, meeting new people, learning new crafts and art. It’s why you might often read what I’m up to and scratch your head: “I didn’t know Derek did that.” I probably didn’t before, but I do now.

Every day we have plenty of opportunities to be upset, to be frustrated, and to be offended. Maybe the day’s plans didn’t work out, or somebody was rude at the office, or a job that should have taken one hour took three. Life is full of inconveniences. There will always be interruptions and difficult people. We can’t control all our circumstances, but we can control our reactions. I’ve heard it said that life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you respond. Go into each day positive, hopeful, and expecting God’s favor. But at the same time be realistic, knowing that most days will not go exactly as you planned. If you become stressed because you are off schedule, frustrated because someone offended you, or upset because your child wouldn’t eat breakfast, you are giving away your power. It’s good to have plans, but at the first part of every day submit those plans to God and just say, “God, this is what I would like to accomplish today. But I know You’re in control, so I submit my plans to You. And I’ve decided in advance that no matter what comes my way, I will stay in peace, knowing You are directing my steps and that all things will work together for my good.” But too many people these days have the wrong approach to life. They think they can’t be happy unless they control all their circumstances and everything goes their way. But that’s not realistic. You have to come to the place where you can say, “I don’t have to have my way to have a good day. My plans don’t have to work out for me to be happy. Everybody doesn’t have to treat me right for life to be enjoyable. I have already made up my mind: No matter what does or doesn’t happen, I will stay in peace and enjoy this day.” The Scripture says that “no one will take away your joy” (John 16:22 NIV). No circumstance can take your peace. No interruption can take your enthusiasm. You have to give it away. The next time you’re tempted to be upset and frustrated, ask yourself, Is this worth giving my power away? Or, This man is rude to me on the phone. I don’t even know him. Is it worth giving him my joy? Or, This coworker left me out of a meeting; is it worth giving away my peace? You may not have the victory, not because you can’t, but because you keep giving it away. Life is too short to be upset and offended. If you allow your circumstances to control your joy, there will always be some reason to be discouraged.

Solitude is a place of stillness and joy that is found in the heart, and once found, becomes all-encompassing. It is a window from the soul that looks upon everything and sees unity. Because it resides in our heart, and not simply in circumstances, solitude need never be delayed until a more convenient time. We can, and probably should, schedule moments in which to practice solitude. But our lives inevitably conspire against us. Eventually, we learn to quickly find that place of quietness within us, regardless of the events swirling around us.

If you talk about it, it's a dream, if you envision it, it's possible, but if you schedule it, it's real.

From Rotting [God will] bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor. ISAIAH 61:3 NIV Sometime in August, after weeks of busy work schedules by day (and sometimes night) and a bathroom tiling project by night (and into the wee morning hours), Mary walked down her front porch steps and took a deep breath. When she looked around, she was shocked to realize how neglected her landscaping was. There were massive broad-leaf weeds taking over the ground. A closer look revealed that the “weeds” were actually pumpkin plants that last year’s rotting pumpkin display had inadvertently provided. She thought about ripping out the vines, since there wasn’t much growing on them yet, but she decided to let what was alive and well continue to grow. Before long, three large, bright orange volunteer pumpkins had pushed past red (now barely visible) mums. Mary started thinking how many things volunteer themselves right into her life—and end up being beautiful additions to her days. God, thank You for taking the rotten things of life and turning them into bountiful blessings. Amen.

Do I need? Destiny Do I need? Schedule live Do I need? Working trends Do I need? Recess lines Lucky and unhappy Vote for a freestyle life Lucky and unhappy Driving on the freeway flash line Lucky and unhappy Vote for a freestyle life Lucky and unhappy Driving on the freeway flash line Do I feel? Helium dreams Do I feel? Fresh impacts Do I feel? Endless nights Do I feel? Venus joy Lucky and unhappy Vote for a freestyle life Lucky and unhappy Driving on the freeway flash line Lucky and unhappy Vote for a freestyle life Lucky and unhappy Driving on the freeway flash line Lucky and unhappy Lucky and unhappy Lucky and unhappy Lucky and unhappy

Lucky And Unhappy Do I need? Destiny Do I need? Schedule live Do I need? Working trends Do I need? Recess lines Lucky and unhappy Vote for a freestyle life Lucky and unhappy Driving on the freeway flash line Lucky and unhappy Vote for a freestyle life Lucky and unhappy Driving on the freeway flash line Do I feel? Helium dreams Do I feel? Fresh impacts Do I feel? Endless nights Do I feel? Venus joy Lucky and unhappy Vote for a freestyle life Lucky and unhappy Driving on the freeway flash line Lucky and unhappy Vote for a freestyle life Lucky and unhappy Driving on the freeway flash line Lucky and unhappy Lucky and unhappy Lucky and unhappy Lucky and unhappy

Joy Division was scheduled to play at Tier 3, but Ian Curtis killed himself a week before the gig.

We’re all guilty of this, squandering our precious time merely trying to get by. We sequester joy for our evenings and weekends, scheduling time when we allow ourselves to live, rather than living all the time. Fulfillment should not be considered an indulgence.

Most people live their lives as if the end were always years away. They measure their days in love, laughter, accomplishment, and loss. There are moments of sunshine and storm. There are schedules, phone calls, careers, anxieties, joys, exotic trips, favorite foods, romance, shame, and hunger. A person can be defined by clothing, the smell of his breath, the way she combs her hair, the shape of his torso, or even the company she keeps. All over the world, children love their parents and yearn for love in return. They revel in the touch of parental hands on their faces. And even on the worst of days, each person has dreams about the future—dreams that sometimes come true. Such is life. Yet life can end in less time than it takes to draw one breath.

In Japan, you will see people slow jogging everywhere, and you’ll see all kinds of people doing it. You’ll see the elderly, moving at two-to-three miles per hour, which for many people is close to walking speed. There are also busy businessmen, who know that five minutes of jogging a few times a day can be as beneficial to their health as twenty or thirty minutes of continuous exercise. Then there are experienced runners who alternate intense training with slow jogging, giving their bodies a chance to recover and reminding themselves of the pure, childish joy of running in fresh air, which tends to get lost in serious training schedules.

But I’m able again to offer rest and hospitable presence for others because I actually possess something of this myself. The grace of this amazes me. When I first introduced the idea of “resting months” to our congregation, they didn’t like it. Three months a year we’d give all our weekly ministries a break without guilt (April, August, and December). I did this because of the age of our congregation, made up of mostly young families with kids. These same families were doing all the volunteering at the church and in the community. Between serving and volunteering, going to Bible studies and house groups, people were wearing out. On the flip side, if anyone did take a break they felt enormous guilt, like they were letting God and us down. Of course, we don’t mandate that our members observe resting months; people can keep meeting if they desire to. But over the years, most have grown thankful for the built-in rhythm they provide. We strategically rest in order to vigorously keep going. If we don’t, we wind up taking unplanned breaks because we are sick or burned out from overworked schedules.

I wonder sometimes if the price of my heightened resistance to loneliness might be higher than I realize. I’m in the phase of life when there are a lot of weddings, a lot of first babies, when, to many, the absence of those things appears troublesome, even pitiable. People like to say you have to be happy alone before you can be happy with someone else, but that doesn’t seem true. I know plenty of people who hated being alone and whose happiness in finding a partner was magnified by relief. Their dislike, sometimes even horror, of being alone primed them for love, motivated them to commit. But if you’re actually happy alone, if you’ve accomplished that mythical prerequisite for love, you will probably also have rendered love less necessary, made yourself less amenable to accommodating someone’s needs and schedule and foibles. You run the risk of becoming set in your ways, of being unable not to feel smothered. An acupuncturist, feeling my pulse, said he could tell I was an armored person. I asked my mom later if she thought I was armored, and she laughed like, duh. Would I be able to tell the difference between contentment and armor? It seems like one should be light and the other heavy, but you can get used to weight, not even notice it after a while.

Our thoughts have more power over what happens today than almost anything else; more than our families, more than our schedules, more than the weather. They shape our moods, our feeling of self-worth, our capacity for joy, our sense of abundance. They are constant companions that can be guided to serve us in creating this beautiful day.

The last things that should be cut from school schedules are chorus, physical education, recess, and anything else involving movement, play, and joyful engagement.

We should show respect for other people even before they have done anything to deserve it, simply because they are human beings. Respect reminds people of their innate and extraordinary value even if they have forgotten it themselves. At the same time, we should always expect to have to earn the respect of others. I have often heard people speak of their encounters with great leaders such as Mother Teresa and Gandhi, and almost to a person they say the same thing, “I felt that for those moments there was nothing else in the world but the two of us and our conversation. People were trying to pull at us, and there was a schedule to be keep, but she gazed into my eyes as if she didn’t have a care in the world, as if nothing other than me existed.” Who doesn’t like to be treated in that way? How do such people do it? The outer action of respect is born from the inner quality of reverence, and that reverence is the fruit of reflection, which helps us to see people and things in their true value.

The Naked Date is an hour or two we set aside each week to get naked with each other. It’s a set time that allows us to take off our clothes, get in bed, and get close to each other. It might be sexual; it might not be. It is scheduled sensual time during which we set aside the pressures of daily life and get next to each other, skin to skin.

Sample Quarterly Review Summary Successes Maintained peak-performance habits Stabilized the company and team Raised funds for next phase of growth Upgraded company-wide marketing Launched leadership development program Failures Worked too much, felt worn out Failed to follow-up on marketing project on time Missed language learning goals in Portuguese Extended two project deadlines unnecessarily Didn’t spend sufficient time with family and friends Insights Perfectionism is a big development opportunity Reading should be scheduled into the day The mind needs to be trained as much as the body Weekly reviews must result in new weekly commitments I want to become world-class at peak performance Actions Determine what are the non-negotiables in my life Increase output with a color-coded master calendar Bring the joy/be more intentional Hire a virtual assistant Create a weekly accountability checklist

Put it into action Schedule a regular reminder of your mortality. You might even book a meeting with yourself to deliberately take time out to reflect on the choices you are making in your life, both on a micro, day-to-day level, as well as on a macro level. During this time, reflect on how present you are being in your life and whether you are making the most of your time on this planet.

Scheduled Breaks I stick to my scheduled breaks each work day: 10:00-11:30am Dog-walk, breakfast, nap 1-2pm Light lunch and nap 4:30-6pm Snack, nap, and dog-walk My naps are about 20 minutes, where I simply lie down, relax, and breathe with good thoughts. Occasionally I fall asleep, but even if I don't, it feels good to just lie down for awhile.

It’s a simple thing, really. A two-mile trip. She’s home in time “to do the teeth and the prayers and the whole bedtime routine.” And yet, having this one night that she knows is for her, and is separate from her work and family responsibilities, has changed her perspective about her schedule—making her more relaxed, and making time in general more joyful. “I’m not great, but it’s fun, and it’s something I look forward to,” she says. Physical activity tends to make people feel good—as

A half hour later, with a new schedule and an alarming set of "personal academic benchmarks" to meet, Steve was released back into the wild, feeling a confusing blend of joy and terror, which was often a ticket to a ride on the anxiety roller coaster.

Then I said, “Mom…” “Yes?” “Thank you for all you do for me. For how much you work and change your schedule to be with me.” “How did you know I did that?” “I just don’t say thank you enough.” She looked at me and her eyes filled. “Do you know why I do it, Eddie?” “Why?” “Because you’re my greatest joy, Eddie. You’re

I said, “Mom…” “Yes?” “Thank you for all you do for me. For how much you work and change your schedule to be with me.” “How did you know I did that?” “I just don’t say thank you enough.” She looked at me and her eyes filled. “Do you know why I do it, Eddie?” “Why?” “Because you’re my greatest joy, Eddie. You’re my joy.

Now I remember, this happened to me before. This is why I left. You have begun to find your answers. Although it will seem difficult the rewards will be great. Exercise your human mind as fully as possible knowing that it is only an exercise. Build beautiful artifacts, solve problems, explore the secrets of the physical universe, savor the input from all the senses, filled with joy and sorrow and laughter, empathy, compassion, and tote the emotional memory in your travel bag. I remember where I came from, and how I became human, why I hung around, and now my final departure's scheduled. This way out, escaping velocity. Not just eternity, but Infinity.

A hypereffective schedule designed to maximize productivity is, in fact, more likely to distract you from what’s important than help you discover it.

Exercise: What Are Your Needs? Look through the following list of basic human needs. This list isn’t exhaustive, just a starting point to help build self-awareness and see what might need more attention in your life. Remember, when you live a life that includes taking care of yourself, your child learns from your example. In your Raising Good Humans journal, write down which of your needs requires more attention. affection air appreciation beauty choice communication community companionship ease empathy equality food freedom growth harmony humor inclusion independence intimacy joy learning love mourning movement/exercise order purpose respect/self-respect rest/sleep safety self-expression sexual expression shelter space stability stimulation support touch trust warmth water Now, think about how you can better meet the needs that have been neglected. What is one concrete action you can take—like scheduling a coffee date or booking childcare—this week? Write down your intention in your Raising Good Humans journal, then take action!

Good health imports that you are roundly ail-free in your schedules and snooze-free; each and every corpusculum of your corporis is bouncing with life incumbency. It produces inner-pax elevation and relaxation. Fortunately, this is a preferential immune sorcery attached and enamored to your useful, peaceful, and cosy sleepiness. Consequently, if you do not defy a balanced and virtuous diet, there will never be a disability or screaming transition here in its quantifiers. It will never be wrong for your pulse and the soundness of your body if you follow it regularly. It ignites standard recording and causes joy to burn brightly without losing hope. Your corporal features are not restricted by unrealistic expectations if you have a temperament for salubrity and its restoration.

He seemed surprised to hear from me now, his tone holding a note of shock. “Saint, how are you? What can I do for you?” “Kenneth. I just heard about the new volunteer counselor. I was hoping to get a copy of his credentials. As you know, the situation with some of the kids is pretty tenuous and new people scare them,” I said. “Oh! Didn’t you know he was coming? He said he had been approved months ago but he had delayed his start date due to traveling out of state for a family death. His name is Roland Cunningham. He’s been a high school counselor for fifteen years and now he’s semi-retired and wants to give back. He says that he saw so many gay kids who needed an ear.” I rolled my eyes so hard I almost hurt myself and Rio frowned at me questioningly. I shook my head and pulled in one deep breath before I spoke. “No, he hasn’t been approved for months. I’ve never heard of him. I suspect he’s a spy who belongs to Clay Greene.” I could hear Kenneth suck air, then chuckle disbelievingly. “Oh, no, Saint. That’s impossible. He had a copy of a volunteer application that you signed and dated in January. You probably just forgot, I know you’ve had a lot on your mind with your sister and everything.” I heard him click his tongue and had to work to not reach through the phone and wring his neck. “He’s going to make sure the kids have someone else to talk to. Don’t worry about it, I’m taking care of everything.” Rio’s frown had morphed into mild alarm, and I wasn’t sure what my face was doing that was causing it but whatever it was must have been interesting. He edged closer as I took several deep breaths. “Kenneth. Listen to me. You need to be cautious. Have you seen the security reports from Mr. Rao? Did make sure you let him know about this Cunningham? Did you run the background check?” “I glanced through the reports, yes, but no, I didn’t tell him about Roland. Mr. Rao is the night guard and Roland is scheduled for afternoons.” He chuckled lightly. “I didn’t see the overlap.” I did not grind my teeth, but it was a near thing. Rio hovered, not touching me, which I was grateful for. Once I got off this phone I was going to go off. “What about the background check, Ken? You know the background check policy.” “Oh, yes,” Kenneth said. “We did the background check. Completely clean, exemplary record with several awards from his career. Really, you need to calm down. I have it all under control.” “Right,” I said. “Well, I’ll let you get back to it then, Ken. Thank you.” I hung up before Kenneth could reply and Rio looked at me warily. “I am going to have him kicked off the board so fast his fucking head is going to spin. Shouldn’t be too hard, it’s full of ball bearings and broken gravel,” I snarled. “So that didn’t go well,” Rio observed quietly. He was still hovering, clearly unsure of how best to handle me.

GODMAN QUOTES 19 ***Important adage*** Attach to your life where it has loophole and defend it where it has a weakness. It was in the beginning that all began and in the end all will stop to exist. All that began with the beginning will stop with the end. When it ceases to stop eternity is born. Schedule a time for measurable allocation of your resources in a place where it yields interest. Be a driver to your own destiny and lease a pilot that flies in your time…life may not pay twice. Break your odds in a world full of guts. Sentimental is detrimental, put action rather than words. There is no calamity in trial when it becomes much often temptation reoccurs. Tales are tails when tells are tall.

The great news is that God specializes in changing people. That is, when they’re humble. So you can become less needy. It’ll happen when you actively turn your attention to God more often, spend time praying and communicating with him, and ask him to grow your desire for him. Joy is a fruit of the Spirit. It’s something that comes from changing the inputs in our lives, altering our schedules, reshaping our habits, and putting our minds repeatedly on the right things. You can be the guy who’s a source of significance and blessing for others. You’ll still struggle with yourself, but you’ll become more and more like Jesus. The enemy tempted him with everything the world had to offer. Power! Significance! Prestige! And Jesus said no. He didn’t need it. He knew who he was. I hope you do too.

This was the tiny sliver of joy that had replaced the days when she had friends. And a hectic schedule. And places to go, obligations to meet, a son to take care of. Her life had been full and chaotic and some parts of it had been wonderful, but not now. Now, all she had was the sun on her face in the morning. And today, like yesterday and tomorrow, it would have to be enough. For now.

What gets in the way of your life unfolding the way you want it to? When we drill down to uncover the answer, we usually find that the obstacle isn’t something external like a tough schedule or a busy job; it comes down to the micro-moments when they are faced with choosing between doing something supportive for themselves or doing something sabotaging, and they find themselves doing the latter.

Most people live their lives as if the end were always years away. They measure their days in love, laughter, accomplishment, and loss. There are moments of sunshine and storm. There are schedules, phone calls, careers, anxieties, joys, exotic trips, favorite foods, romance, shame, and hunger. A person can be defined by clothing, the smell of his breath, the way she combs her hair, the shape of his torso, or even the company she keeps.

Take better control of your schedule by choosing to do one spontaneous thing for yourself every day.

helping me. It’s a full-time job, and I am grateful for your concern for my reader friends. Of course, thanks to my daughter and sons, who pull together—bringing me iced green tea and understanding my sometimes crazy schedule. I love that you know you’re still first, before any deadline. Thank you to my mom, Anne Kingsbury, and to my sisters, Tricia and Sue. Mom, you are amazing as my assistant—working day and night sorting through the mail from my readers. I appreciate you more than you’ll ever know. Traveling together these past years for Extraordinary Women and Women of Joy events has given us times that we will always treasure. Now we will be at Women

We’re all guilty of this, squandering our precious time merely trying to get by. We sequester joy for our evenings and weekends, scheduling time when we allow ourselves to live, rather than living all the time.

God desires to be Lord over you. Not Lord around your schedule. Until you learn to schedule your life around Him you will never know Him. The Lord is inviting His last day children to rediscover the joy of His presence.

Schedule kindness in your day. Watch how small acts of  kindness can change your mood, bring someone else joy, and give both of you a positive benefit. 

Train the consumer to consume temporary fillers. Tell her to collect the tokens that assure her that she has what she needs. Tell her to seek joy in learning that home remedy, buying that decoration, rearranging that schedule, enrolling her kids in that program, or building herself up into the image that she wants to embody. All of those things are easy enough to do if you have enough money, discipline, time, energy, or earthly resources. But there’s a catch: collecting the tokens and living by the lie that your image will give you the peace you crave will only satisfy you for a moment. And then you need another fix. Idols need dusting and maintaining. They always leave you wanting something more, something better, something new, or something your neighbor has. Consuming, we are consumed. When the gods of this world leverage our needs and redirect our hope away from God himself, they indirectly hinder our obedience to the Great Commission. How many missionaries have been held back by consumerism’s short leash? (We can’t afford to go.) How many of our giving budgets have been strangled by consumerism’s shortsighted vision? (We can’t afford to give.) How many of our families have been capped by consumeristic spending forecasts? (We can’t afford to grow.) We need the promises of Jesus to drown out the siren song of consumerism. He’s given missional moms his anchoring promise to hold us fast: “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20). Will we trust him more than we trust our stuff?

Your body and soul know when you need a break. Listen to that wisdom, and when it raises the red flag, schedule in some holy down time.

If kids lead tightly scheduled lives from the time they’re young (including preschool, which increasingly takes a modular approach to dividing the day), they seldom experience boredom, which means they don’t really know how to tolerate boredom, which means they look to their parents to help them alleviate it.

SMALL CHILDREN COME WITH a built-in paradox. The same developmental phenomena that make them so frustrating—namely, their immature prefrontal cortexes, which insist on living in the here and now—are what can also make them so freeing to be around. Most of us live by a schedule, with places to be and chores to do.

Overscheduling has earned more than its share of critics, who fear it makes kids anxious and robs them of the glories of imaginative idling and unstructured play. But few critics think to ask what kind of harm such overzealous planning might be doing to children’s parents. Yes, those parents are usually the ones responsible for the family schedules and are therefore complicit in the problem. But it’s worth considering what particular forces could be driving mothers and fathers to such extravagant lengths.

Imagine your brain as a beautiful, calm harbor. You are the harbor master, so you can choose what ships can anchor in the harbor. You can’t control which ships sail by, but you can choose not to let certain ships into the harbor. Just like you choose what goes into your home and what goes into your schedule, you can choose what thoughts you allow to enter your harbor. You may not be able to keep certain thoughts from flitting by, but you can decide not to entertain certain thoughts. By choosing your thoughts and intentions carefully, you create a more peaceful inner life, a life that is more joyful and creative.

The last things that should be cut from school schedules are chorus, physical education, recess, and anything else involving movement, play, and joyful engagement. When children are oppositional, defensive, numbed out, or enraged, it’s also important to recognize that such “bad behavior” may repeat action patterns that were established to survive serious threats, even if they are intensely upsetting or off-putting.

Don’t worry about your schedule, your business, your family, or your friends. Just focus with me and really open your mind. In your mind’s eye, see yourself going to the funeral of a loved one. Picture yourself driving to the funeral parlor or chapel, parking the car, and getting out. As you walk inside the building, you notice the flowers, the soft organ music. You see the faces of friends and family you pass along the way. You feel the shared sorrow of losing, the joy of having known, that radiates from the hearts of the people there. As you walk down to the front of the room and look inside the casket, you suddenly come face-to-face with yourself. This is your funeral, three years from today. All these people have come to honor you, to express feelings of love and appreciation for your life. As you take a seat and wait for the services to begin, you look at the program in your hand. There are to be four speakers. The first is from your family, immediate and also extended—children, brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents who have come from all over the country to attend. The second speaker is one of your friends, someone who can give a sense of what you were as a person. The third speaker is from your work or profession. And the fourth is from your church or some community organization where you’ve been involved in service. Now think deeply. What would you like each of these speakers to say about you and your life? What kind of husband, wife, father, or mother would you like their words to reflect? What kind of son or daughter or cousin? What kind of friend? What kind of working associate? What character would you like them to have seen in you? What contributions, what achievements would you want them to remember? Look carefully at the people around you. What difference would you like to have made in their lives? Before you read further, take a few minutes to jot down your impressions. It will greatly increase your personal understanding of Habit 2.

It’s then that Jesus gives us more of himself, proving over and over that he is enough, that he is good, that there is more joy in him than in the grain and wine that abound (Psalm 4:7)—or in the kids who never make messes and the dinner that prepares itself and the schedules that operate seamlessly. He is better.

You see, God wants you to be alive and share in that life with your children. He wants to help you develop a foundation of joy, imagination, and beauty in the lives you share together. Experiences like those described above, as with any other part of life, don’t just happen. You must have a plan. What kind of home do you want to live in? How can you craft a home and a schedule that is interesting for you and your children? In taking responsibility for being a conductor of the music of your and your family’s life, you will find joy and fulfillment, and, as I did with my sweet kids, eventually find that you have developed your own best friends out of your own children, who have learned to love what you love.

He unfailingly managed to preserve the core messages of the works, while stripping out what little fun and wonder those copies of copies had contained.  The works of previous generations were simply too stimulating – so stimulating that many City Zens read them simply for the joy of it, and not for the healthy doses of approved properthink that they were meant to instill. He grunted.  No one would ever accuse anyone of reading his works for pure enjoyment.  No sir.  His works existed first and foremost to serve the edicts of the Lords and Masters Above. It was the least one

Priorities: Priority #1: God The relationship with God must come first. Why? Because we need God's perspective in every area of our lives. ... Priority #2: Husband Solomon said, "A worthy wife is her husband's joy and crown; the other kind corrodes his strength and tears down everything he does" (Proverbs 12:4) ... Priority #3: Children See Bible verses about child rearing. ... Priority #4: Home Proverbs 31:27 The virtuous wife in Proverbs 31 seems to have been a very neat, tidy housekeeper. It seems to come naturally to some people, but I'm not one of them. Priority #5: Yourself Everyone needs time alone - time to read, to indulge in a hobby, or just to do nothing. Evaluate your weekly schedule and plan into it time for yourself. ... Priority #6: Outside The Home I was sharing my excitement about the priorities of a woman's life with a group of women in upstate New York, and one woman said, "Linda, I cannot believe what you are saying. I know that you believe in the Great Commission, to go into the world and preach the gospel, was given to women as well as to men, yet you are saying that our service for Christ is at the end of the list. Since I became a Christian two years ago, my service to the Lord has been first!" I smiled and told her I'd like to ask her husband how he liked that! When my children were very young, I decided before God to keep my priorities in the order I've shared. I still re-evaluate where I spend my time and seek to keep God first, Husband second, my children third, my home fourth, me fifth, and my outside activities sixth.

He delivered some fifteen lectures in and around Dryden and McGrawville, New York. On October 1 he announced appearances in at least eleven towns in Tompkins County alone. The schedule was backbreaking, but on an earlier stop in Ithaca in late July, Douglass described a little break before the evening speech. He hiked a “mile or two” along the east bank of Cayuga Lake until he found “a suitable place to renew my acquaintance with the art of swimming.” He told of his sheer joy in a kind of diary for the paper: “Here all my boyish pranks in the front basin of Baltimore were renewed. I had a glorious swim.”33

and then filling the Oval Office with laughter the next. It was the only way to get through the job—to intentionally inject some fun and joy into it. But in the White House that day, my friend Bob Trono found nothing joyful or humorous about his meeting with the president. “Who’re we waitin’ on?” Bush asked, after he entered the Roosevelt Room five minutes before the scheduled start time. Someone answered that Comey was downstairs in the Situation Room. “Jim can catch up when he gets here,” Bush said. “Let’s get going.” Bob could feel the perspiration trickle down his neck. The meeting marched through the departments, as various principals gave the president their

And parents oblige, worrying that their children will suffer from loneliness if they don’t. This is yet another reason why mothers and fathers schedule so many after-school activities for their children. Lareau noticed it immediately in the families she studied. “Middle-class parents,” she writes, “worry that if their children do not enroll in organized activities, they will have no one to play with after school and/ or during spring and summer breaks.

Now, I remember that given female life expectancy is 83 for women and 79 for men, even if it takes until age 50 to meet him (or her, if I switch sides, never say never), I will still have 29 l-o-n-g years with that guy (if we are the same age and he dies right on schedule). 29 years! I mean. The longest relationship I’ve ever managed thus far was three years, and it was hard to even keep that alit, so that 29-year hypothetical relationship is going to be a humdinger of a challenge. I can wait. Is fine.

But twenty-five million years ago, a band of brazen night monkeys ventured out into the daylight, adopting the diurnal schedule we still follow today. In this new ecological niche, the ability to see color suddenly became a useful advantage. While the eyes of their nocturnal cousins had only two types of color-sensing cone cells, our ancestors evolved a third cone, sensitive to light in the middle of the spectrum, that radically multiplied the number of colors they were able to see. This extra cone offered up a tantalizing array of new shades, including the ability to distinguish red from green.

This circular concept of time remains prevalent in the religion and philosophy of many indigenous and Eastern cultures. But in the West, our awareness of cycles has been overshadowed by a linear view of time, one that emphasizes beginnings and endings and strives for progress over repetition. Why did linear time come to dominate the Western way of thinking? Part of the reason is cultural, having to do with the way that Judeo-Christian thought describes the story of humanity not as a wheel but as a distinct trajectory through time. But equally important is that as we have come to see ourselves as separate from nature, we have built structures and systems that distance us from its circular rhythms. Electric light allows us to keep our own schedules, obscuring the phases of the moon and draining the sunrise and sunset of the meaning they once carried. Rather than matching our appetites to the harvests, we match the harvests to our desires. We have big watery strawberries all year round, forgetting that there was once a time when they were available only in June and tasted like sweet red fire. Our buildings heat and cool the air to a consistent temperature regardless of the weather outside. Our sound machines play any birdsong on demand, regardless of where those birds are in their migratory arc. Thus, disconnected from participation in these natural cycles, we have forgotten that time moves in loops as well as lines.

The first strategy to increase your daily happiness level is to incorporate an activity you love into your daily schedule

On every trip back to the Midwest, I step aside from my schedule and visit my parent’s graves. And with trimmers in hand I kneel down and I cut back the intruding grasses and occasional weed that has edged up against their headstones. It is not in grief that I do this, but in the fondest recollection. The tears that often visit me there are those of joy; that God had thought enough of me to bless me with parent’s rich in love, ever bound by sacrifice, and sturdy in faith despite the nature of the adversities that so often beset them. And as I leave their graves and head back to the pressing demands of my world, I depart with the commitment to live my life in a manner that my children will find no grief at my grave, but joy in knowing that God chose me for them.