Does the new year really begin today, a time ripe with opportunity to set new patterns?
While it’s no where near January 1, a new year starts today when a familiar pattern, or a new or renewed pattern, sets in. In my family and my city, kids go back to school today. How traffic moves changes. How families organize themselves changes. People are back at work from summer holidays. The reality of fall is setting in.
I feel liberated by the structure that comes in the fall, when I feel a surge of energy to hunker down and get to work after a summer pattern where work and relaxation seem to drift into one another. As the structure returns, so does the quiet I long for to write. Here is what’s wanting to be written:
- A complete draft manuscript of Nest City by December 15, 2013.
- Nest City blog posts every Monday and Thursday.
- Nest City News publications the first and third Monday of the month.
To pull off the above, I have to choose how to spend my time and energy within the structure in which I operate. I have to renew my commitment to my work, family, neighbourhood, city and planet. In my work life, I have to renew my commitment to my writing projects, to my clients and the day-to-day needs of running a business. I have to renew my commitments to my self and my Highest Self.
Here’s one of my choices about where I will be spending my energy over the next three months: a book circle exploring Otto Scharmer and Katrin Kaufer’s new book: Leading from the Emerging Future. Eight colleagues and I have committed to read the book, journal our personal journey along the way, and meet after we have read each chapter to explore what we are individually and collectively learning. That will lead to a happy new year, with emerging patterns in life and work.
Happy new year! May the returning patterns refresh you. May your new patterns revive you.
What new patterns are emerging in you?
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This post is part of Chapter 9 – Be the Best Citizen You Can Be. Here are some plot helpers of Nest City: The Human Drive to Thrive in Cities, the book I am sharing here while I search for a publisher:
- My decision to share the book while I am working on it
- The overall structure of Nest City’s three parts
- A summary of Part 1 – City Patterns, Concluding City Patterns
- A summary of Part 2 – Organizing for Emergence, Focus, learn and Emerge
- The plot for Part 3 – City Nestworks
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