Renewal and Reinvention
Renewal and Reinvention
Written By Brian Brooks
If you grew up in the Dallas area in the 80’s or 90’s, you might remember the sadistic commercials from retailers that started the Back to School Sale TV ads the second week of your beloved summer break. An afternoon of “I Dream of Jeannie” and “Hogan’s Heroes” interrupted with these cruel reminders of our temporary reprieve. As the summer waned on, radio, newspapers, billboards, and storefronts all heralded the impending end of summer and the return to school.
But there was something exciting and magical about the coming of a new school year. Not only was there a slew of new things - school supplies, clothes, lunchbox, backpack, there was also a new outlook. I would start every year with a new mindset.
“This year’s gonna be different!”
“I’m gonna dress cooler!”
“I’m gonna get more organized!”
“I’m gonna study more!”
“I’m gonna get all my homework done on time! And this year I MEAN IT!”
New habits, new routines, new practices and new rhythms. How I long for those seasons of renewal and reinvention!
The older I get, the more I lack those cyclical hard breaks and restarts. Work, home and even spiritual life seem to be perpetual and unending cycles without clear delineation between seasons or eras. Breaking the unending cycle of routine often requires intentionality. It’s creating those hard breaks – a vacation, a personal retreat, a weekend with your spouse or a spiritual sabbatical. Intentional breaks can be enough to help us get an azimuth check on our life and course corrections.
My family lives for vacations. We love to travel and get enveloped in a different culture or experience. We learn perspective by living a temporary life of the locals. These are times of growth, revival and reenergizing our souls.
It is my nature to check out of this experiential euphoria a few days before the vacation ends. I start fixating on the mountain of work waiting for me and all the home projects I’ve left undone. When I do this, I’m not acknowledging the benefit and the necessity of the break. Moreover, I’m not allowing the break to be a transformational moment from which I return renewed.
For vacations to work right, I have to be intentional about why I’m taking this break. Months before, I have the date laid out and start planning with high anticipation. The build-up to that moment motivates me to push on through the slog of work and life. I have to remind myself of the excitement and finality of closing my laptop at work right before a vacation. It’s like that same adrenaline I used to get on the last day of school. Then it’s about staying engaged the entire time away and reflecting on experience before returning to the real world again.
Sometimes breaks are not intentional. At these moments it’s about recognizing the moments of unplanned change – illness and recovery, loss or gaining a job, loss or birth of a loved one, isolation and reemergence from COVID, crises of faith and dark nights of the soul. While these events are mixes of pain, joy, anxiety and peacefulness, these are the opening and closing of important epochs in our life. By recognizing these major shifts we can also identify methods for renewal and rebirth.
In 2016, I found myself at the nexus of unplanned change. My job in a municipal government had become a toxic loop of political turmoil. Public barrages attacking my character were causing painful blowback on my integrity, my family and my health. So I walked away. A fifteen year progressive career in government service, surviving a decade as a City Manager service, dropped at age 42. For a time, there were thoughts of returning. But realizing I would turn right back to the poisonous lifestyle, I chose a new career path.
With that life altering decision came a rebirth – not just in my career, but in my complete outlook on life. That change in outlook transformed into finding a new community, a new lifestyle, new values and eventually a new faith. Family matters more than career. Joy and contentment matters more than money. People and love matter more than opinions and dogma.
Whether voluntary or involuntary, intentional or accidental breaks in our cyclical and perpetual lives are essential to renewal and growth. Don’t waste these moments. Embrace them and use them to become someone better.
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