Why must we have a snow day to feel permission to slow down?

Yesterday, we had to slow down. The streets were covered in ice. Schools were closed, university classes were canceled, and workplaces ran abbreviated schedules. People had a rare chance to stop careening through the day. They were able to watch movies, go sledding, make snow angels, and cook meals with friends and family. For most, it was a much calmer day (although if you were inside with restless children, you might not have felt calm).

So why don’t we live this way all the time?

On NBC Nightly News last night, Brian Williams reported that one-third of heart disease is related to stress and chronic working. “If you are old enough,” he said, “you remember a day when, after work, you go home from work and maybe once every six months you would get an after-hours call from work. But for the most part you didn’t think about work until it was time to go back to work the next day. Well, not anymore. Now, work is in your hand, on the screen, staring you in the face and expects an answer at night at 11:00 pm.” The result? Sleeping less. Taking vacations with our laptops by our sides. And the result of that is people are ending up in the emergency room with heart problems, one-third of which are a result of stress.

So how can we set limits?

For me, I have pledged that I will turn off my iPad each night at 7:00 and not turn it on again until the next morning. I don’t need to sit looking at that screen hour after hour. I make it sound like it will be easy for me to do, but it’s not. I love my iPad. I have called it the single greatest material object I have ever owned. I am able to access the New York Times, my Twitter feed, my facebook page, and my email, all in one place. But that’s the danger – the double-edged sword, so to speak. I find myself checking my work email a dozen times. Then I am moving from app to app, playing a video game and checking scores on ESPN Scorecenter. Doing that has become habitual behavior. I mean, come on. I don’t really need to know the score of the Arizona game that many times in an hour, do I?

Think about it. What limits are you willing to set on yourself so that more days become like snow days?

Russell Wilson isn’t perfect.

That statement may come as a shock to Seahawk, Wolfpack, and Badger fans who have adored him because he often seems perfect. He is so calm, poised, and intelligent that when he makes a mistake we are surprised.

We forget that the day Russell became the quarterback at NC State, no one thought he was “perfect.” At 5’11”, he was shorter than the prototypical college quarterback. Most of the successful ones were 6’4″ or 6’5″, able to see over huge offensive linemen and withstand vicious hits. When people saw Russell, they mumbled about him – they weren’t sure how long he could hold up. In his first college game, he was carried off the field with a concussion before halftime. See? they said. I told you so.

But Russell didn’t quit because he wasn’t the “perfect” quarterback. He learned from that concussion that he couldn’t be the kind of quarterback everyone else was. If he was going to be one, he had to play the position differently. It was not going to be easy. He would be knocked down, he would make mistakes, and the Wolfpack would lose some games. But he would become a better player because of his innate willingness to learn….and his desire to keep moving forward despite his imperfection.

This past December, the Seahawks lost to the Atlanta Falcons, and Russell had a mediocre game. People were surprised: the Falcons were having a rough season and the Seahawks had seemed almost invincible. Russell had been having a great year. After that game, he said, “Everything doesn’t just perfectly go easy. If you’re trying to get to something great, a lot of times you go through some hardships and some times where everything is not perfect. You go through some bumps in the road.”

Those words may be Russell’s most perfect yet.

Update, January 20, 2014 – In two weeks, Russell Wilson will be playing in the Super Bowl. He didn’t have to be perfect to get there.

Often when students come in for a meeting, they are carrying these giant backpacks crammed so full, I joke, “Is there a body in there?” They laugh, and once in awhile, one will say, “It feels like it.”

I was thinking today about a backpack as a symbol for each day. If yours is huge and full of stuff, it is often difficult to find what you need inside. The weight of it throws you off kilter. Your shoulders and back hurt. You wonder, do I really need to carry all of this?

What about sitting down and taking everything out of your “backpack day”? Sort through it. Decide if it really serves you, or if it just fills the time.

It is hard in this age of YOLO (You Only Live Once) to take things out and not put them back in. I had a student once tell me that he hated to go to sleep at night because he thought he was missing something. Yet, because he was up so late every night, he was now so sleep deprived he was sleepwalking through his days and was missing all kinds of good things anyway!

Think about it this way: if you empty your backpack and then only put in what you truly need, your experience of the day will not only be more pleasant but you might also encounter something that could make your life amazing….and you won’t miss it.

If you traveled over the holidays did you say to yourself, “I just sleep better in my own bed”? I know I say that sometimes, especially when I have been moving from place to place.

But what happens when you have to get a new bed?

Right after Christmas, I ordered my first new bed in 17 years. I loved my old bed – it was a Sealy pillowtop, and I loved falling into it at the end of a long day. But in October, it started creaking every time I turned, so I knew the box springs were shot. It was time. I struggled with the idea, though. I really, really loved my bed. I hated to give it up. It had given me comfort, support, and happiness. Sigh.

My new bed was delivered right after Christmas. I thought, hey, this is great! This bed is bigger and firmer. It doesn’t make creaking sounds. It seems to be pretty comfortable.

Then I spent the first night in it. I woke up several times, tossing and turning. What bed is this? I thought every time I woke up. Where am I?

I finally woke up for good around 5:00 am and sat in the new bed thinking, what in the world happened last night? I usually sleep through the night easily. What was it that kept waking me up?

I realized that it was the change that had kept me from sleeping soundly, even though it was a change for the better. Funny, isn’t it? We get so used to the circumstances of our lives that when something changes, we feel off-kilter. Maybe that’s why New Year’s resolutions are so difficult to maintain. We know there are things we need to change for our own good, but we get so accustomed to the daily routine we have fashioned for ourselves. It is uncomfortable to create a new exercise plan, a diet that limits sugar, or a work schedule that isn’t swallowing up everything in its path, even when we know that doing so will improve the quality of our lives in immeasurable ways. We know we need to replace our “old bed,” but we resist because it means change.

So now I have had the new bed for a while, and I really like it. I am sleeping through the night again, and I wake up refreshed. It has inspired me to look at other areas of my life where I need to make changes.

In this new year, do you have an “old bed” that you are willing to replace?