A Mindful Year

“Hits The Mark” Even in a Pandemic Year

What a different kind of life most of us might lead in the following year, is usually premised in some kind of self improvement that is often the stuff of New Year’s resolutions, highly prone to abandonment in quick order! However, I have never seen the calendar turning over to a new year as good reason to impose dramatic changes on myself. That’s mainly because I consciously seek — year-long — to learn and grow in ways that hopefully make me a better human. And some routines just foster this better than others, including using a daily reader like this one.

My “better than,” especially true since gathering several decades of life experience under the label of my adult self, is not much about others’ attainments, or capturing a certain image for myself reflected in others’ perceptions of me, but about myself, in the old saw of working on “me, myself, and I” and being someone seeking to become a more enlightened and loving human. So when I began this book, at the beginning of 2020, I quickly found the entries relatable and looked forward to what the authors would have to say next. Like a majority of us, I of course had no idea what kind of out-of-the-ordinary year it would turn into...So many profound happenings bringing multiple “-isms” to the world’s foreground to dramatically impact social justice, together with a worldwide pandemic! But I think it is the mark of a very effectively written and useful book that this daily reader has still ‘fit’ as well as it has, on the personal experience, each individual getting through life with reference to a larger context, and seen me through these last nine plus months of decidedly unusual days, “with alacrity.”

These are one-page readings generally, short enough to take only a little time to read, long enough to deliver their messages, usually given using the context of examples from the authors’ personal and professional lives. Each entry is prefaced by a relevant quotation mostly from well-known persons. As might be expected of the two experienced mental health professionals as authors, there is a combination of progressively examining and building on a theme for several days, with questions provided in guidance and prompting us to dive a little deeper on our own, that generally works really well. A daily “invitation“ outlines questions prompted by the day’s entry and asks us to reflect on our own ideas, beliefs and values, work, family, activities, etc.

My one complaint about the book, which causes me to deduct a star, comes from the lack of something that would have been so easy to include, and made the book even more relevant and easy to follow: knowing definitively who the writer for each day was. Apparently, these two authors wrote back-and-forth to one another daily for a year and turned those emails into this book. I really enjoyed that interplay, of two perspectives that adds value, makes for richer content. However, as noted, I would have appreciated precision about which author was speaking each day. In occasional entries, it was clear because of specific personal references. That was not true in most of them, however. So, I found myself on many occasions trying to figure out whose entry it was. This mattered to me for two main reasons. One was for adding greater context or depth to the message, with some related understanding of how their respective UK and US experiences, locations and cultural influences might be playing into their stories and guidance but most of all, for ease of quoting them! I collect quotations for my own edification mainly, but also, to illustrate ideas and prompt reflection at times, in the targets of my business writing. So, this is significant information to have when a jointly authored book like this one deliberately exposes the two authors’ contributions, rather than speaks from one common voice throughout the book. In this case,the attribution and recognition in reference to any given day’s entry should therefore be easily referable as to its author.

All-in-all, writing this as I am in the last few days of the year, the fact I am experiencing grief over the book’s impending end on December 31st, should tell you how much value it has had to me this year. I have a good basis for comparison as I have for many years annually chosen one book to be my daily reader for the upcoming year. Whether you pick it up just occasionally or begin on January 1st and daily move forward through it, there will be plenty to relate to and benefit from. Worth every penny, in my opinion, this book is a keeper! I might repeat using as soon as the coming year which in fact means this is a stand-out annual reader. I highly recommend it.