post-days of awe

Okay. So we're through the dark days when it seems that it's more important than any other time to contemplate your sins. I really don't mean to be disrespectful, but I don't buy this narrow "Today in God" view of spirituality. Making a big to-do about searching your soul between Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur is just bogus. I guess from the religion developers' point of view, better 10 days a year than nothing. But how effective can one shot a year be?

Some people just love the rituals and find comfort in them; that's cool. It's all the calendar-focussed commentary that I object to.

So I'm making a new year's resolution to put my money where my mouth is, so to speak.

My position is that contemplation of one's sins, heshbon nefesh [taking account of one's soul], is something that is rightly done on a daily basis, not saved for some arbitrary few days once a year. It can be done while driving to work; on the treadmill; preparing food; even during the 2-1/2 minutes it takes to make microwave popcorn. I have no excuse for having no time to do it. If the artificial constraints of religion rub me the wrong way, that doesn't mean there's not a right way for me to do what all religions at their core originally were meant to accomplish: balance and harmony with a higher point of vibration/life/spirit/whatever word one chooses.

That may all sound very self-righteous, but I'm admitting that I'm NOT doing it.

Therefore, I'm going to make an effort to be more conscious of those things that take me off to that nasty place of mine, and face them more honestly, issues such as:

1. my irritation (sometimes bordering on homicidal) with other drivers
2. emotional reactions to button-pushing colleagues
3. ...ummm, other stuff I'm not ready to talk about, but will have to deal with eventually

I can already see this is going to be harder than I thought.

That's why it's good to practice all year.