Summer 2016

Each June brings me an interesting change of pace.  Working in higher education means that so many people assume I get summers off. 

Since beginning college, I have not gotten summers off!  Actually my last summer off was Summer of 1983.  That was the summer before my Senior year of high school.

These days, as have been the case for a number of years, I have a dual role for summer days.  The first role is to wind down the previous academic year.  The second role, but not secondary, is to prepare for the upcoming academic year.

The winding down role consist of helping individuals reflect on their own academic years and collect Annual Reports.

The gearing up role consist of getting calendars together, preparing for planning, meetings, and scheduling the new year while we prepare a new group of incoming students to charge forth and take their place on the American landscape.

In years past, I have not given a great deal of thought to the summer months as I have been too busy to notice the months’ swift passing.  This year I have noticed with a unique perspective that summer blazed upon us (literally and figuratively) within what seems like moments we went from a moderate temperature to almost 100 degrees. 

It is going to be a long, very hot summer.  So I want to consider what I am inviting into my life this June.  I recently watched Jon Acuff (http://acuff.me/) on a little free webinar and was quite impressed with his vision and insights.

I subscribed to Acuff’s blog and this summer he has issued a “1500 Minute Challenge” where each day for 15 minutes you work on a specific skill.  This selected skill is one you wish to improve upon and Acuff notes that it holds reasonably likely that after practicing this skill for 1500 minutes, you will have improved.

Then I read Emily P. Freeman’s blog (http://emilypfreeman.com/blog/) about June and loved her quote, “We’ll see how this June wants to play.”

I love the picture this gives me of June being separate from me, just something to be experienced but not kept.

Ali Edwards (http://aliedwards.com/blog) often writes about what you invite into your life.  Thus I wanted to think about what I’m inviting into my life this summer. 

So far this year I have been working on openness and I will continue to cultivate that.  But I want to spend this summer at a little slower pace than I have experienced previous summers.

I want to spend slower evenings and lingering weekends.  I want to saturate myself in love and laughter and let Summer 2016 lazily stroll through like a parade instead of a turbo rocket.

Here’s to you Summer ’16, may you be sweet.