Nothing in the universe can stop you from letting go and starting over. ~ Gary Finley

So tonight a grab bag of things to talk about, going back to school, going easy on yourself and a new project I’m working on.

Back to school

It’s that time of year for those of us tied to the school year calendar. So that means students, parents of students, teachers, administrator and anyone else working in education. This is an incredibly confusing and anxiety filled year for all of us and I’ve recently written about it on my Higher Ed Mentor blog in a piece called The Hardest Semester of Your Career. For all of us, there are masking requirements, or not, vaccine requirements, or not. Some of our jobs have changed to a remote status for at least part of the time, or not. Some of our jobs have changed permanently and as it’s being reported in the press, many of us have gone on to new jobs. Something I consider a silver lining for the COVID pandemic is that more people have decided to make happiness a larger factor in their lives and are chasing jobs that put happiness and life satisfaction ahead of money and climbing the corporate ladder.

For me this means a return to full-time or near full-time life on campus. I never fully went remote, I’ve had programs that I manage on campus for the last year. It’s been an incredibly frustrating process of continual change, confusing regulations and lots of moving parts that are often clarified with no recognition of the impact on managers like myself. So I fully expect this to be one of the more complicated and frustrating semesters I’ve ever faced. And with the Delta Variant and COVID cases on the rise again, I’m sure it’s due to get even more complicated. Well, one to three years til my next major life move, so here we go again.

Take it easy on yourself

Really just a reminder for all of us to not only provide grace to others in these tough times, but to provide grace to yourself. We’re all living through a time where we’ve been traumatized in one way or another. We are continuing to deal with lots of uncertainty in our world and lives. This means we are all anxious, we are stressed and as such we are all “off” in some way. I’ve talked here about my difficulty with motivation, something they call a state of languishing, over the last year. Not the get out of bed, or go to work lack of motivation, but motivation for the extra and frankly more important things I do in life, my writing, photography, travel, etc….

So understand that it’s okay if you’re not quite at normal in some ways. None of us are at our best, so be graceful and forgiving with yourself. Take a deep breath and try and put a better step forward tomorrow and if that takes longer than usual to be successful, that’s okay right now.

The Shambling Apocalypse

So on the note of projects that have been languishing, for some time I’ve had a Facebook page called The End is Here. I’ve been meaning to do a broader blog but the project has been languishing. There are a lot of little things to getting a new blog up and running. Picking a name is so much harder than you think, because you also have to consider the availability of domain names and similar names on the internet. My working title was the slow motion apocalypse but there’s a metal band with that name, so I moved on. After the name, you need an image, you need to pick a design theme and with every design theme there are an array of tiny differences from what you have used before that are amazingly frustrating until you get them figured out. I’ve also adjusted the Facebook page to correspond with the blog name.

The blog will center around the idea that we are already in the apocalypse albeit not like the movies but moving in slow motion. Experiencing a pandemic, economic and political instability, falling fertility rates, resource depletion and global climate change. My perspective is always a bit analytical as well as focused on how this all impacts you and what you can do to mitigate the effects on you, your children and the other people you care for and about. So, if you’re interested you can check out the blog at the ShamblingApocalypse.com

Upon learning of my new project a friend commented on Facebook, from the Ministry of Happiness to the Shambling Apocalypse, it’s been a hell of a year, and it has. However, regardless of what is happening in the world, you can always have happy days my friends. ~ Rev Kane