And so April is upon us, and the 2nd term of the 2016-17 academic year comes to a close. I have said it a few times already this year, but how time flies!
I thought now would be a good time to review the year so far and to look back on my resolutions for 2017 and evaluate the progress made to date.
When I wrote my resolutions I listed a need for mindfulness including an awareness of my emotional state, however I don’t think I fully appreciated the importance of this aspect of life. My recent reading of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius and also The Obstacle is the way by Ryan Holiday have both further brought this into focus. Our reality is viewed through the lens of our perception, therefore if we take a more optimistic view, if we focus on what is in our control, then we can bring about a more positive reality. With this in mind I think I have made some progress, for realisation is a step in itself. This however will need to be something which I continue to consider, and to revisit.
I don’t feel I have been as connected during the first quarter of 2017 as I maybe was in 2016 with a reduced engagement in twitter balanced out against a slight increase in my blogging. I think this is reasonably fair and acceptable outcome. I am starting to consider the depth of connection, with a view that some of my social media based connections are generally more shallow than corresponding in-person connections. This seems to suggest that my focus should be more on attending events and building in person contacts however I am unsure as to how I will be able to fit this into a busy schedule. I also wouldn’t want to lose out on my diverse range and highly valuable Professional learning network where it exists online.
My reading has definitely been going well so far this year. As we reach the end of the 3rd month of the year, I have completed reading 6 books. The books themselves have all been reasonably deep titles including Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. I have very much enjoyed reading more, and even managed to find a single sunny day to spend outside in the gardening reading. Hopefully the months ahead will provide more opportunities for this to happen.
As has been the case before the health and physical exercise side of things has slipped. My planned walking across campus daily was adding time to my day albeit only 20mins or so and as such, and especially given the cold winter weather, I decided to stop this activity. I now need to find some way to address this area in my life even more so having saw the news the other morning which raised the concern of the high percentage of people in the UK who live a sedentary lifestyle. I suspect I am one of those people!
The family side of things have met with some success so far this year. I am now spending a short daily burst of time with my son on his maths development in particular. I have also managed to remember some of the key family dates and surprise my wife in doing so. This is something I need to continue to work on.
My current book which I am reading is Happiness by Design by Paul Dolan. I think it will be interesting to revisit my reflections having completed reading this as it has already raised some interesting ideas in relation to pleasure and purpose. At this point I think I am more of a busy, or purposeful, person. Am not sure yet whether this is a good thing or not.
I tried for a period to engage in daily journaling however this dropped away in the last month or so. I think this may be an interesting practice to pick back up possibly using a purpose vs. pleasure framework for notes. Hopefully this is therefore something I can recommence and sustain through the final term of the year.
All in all, I feel things are progressing steadily in terms of the things achieved, however time is seeming to fly by. They do say that time flies when you are having fun, so for now I will be content to leave these reflections on that positive note.
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