We've stopped letting ourselves be bored. Every quiet moment - waiting for coffee, walking from the car to the house - now gets scrolled through instead of lived through. Even on holiday, work sneaks in with "just five minutes" that add up to never really being off, even when we're technically off.
So this July we want to practice something: being truly present. And if not now, in the middle of summer, then when?
So when summer comes, I swap scrolling for books. Here are a few of my favourites.
Essentialism, by Greg McKeown - without question my favourite read this year. "The way of the Essentialist is the relentless pursuit of less but better." That line has stayed with me all year, mostly because it put words to something I already believed.
Rest, by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, makes the case, backed by real research, that "rest is not work's adversary, rest is work's partner." Not something we earn once the real work is done, but something that makes the real work possible in the first place.
The Untethered Soul, by Michael Singer, is different - less about productivity, more about finding the joy in being alive. It's the book I go back to when I want to remember how big and good life actually is, underneath all the noise.
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