Welcome back to Plane Thoughts.
Earlier this week I was at breakfast on the rooftop of my hotel in Monaco. I was marvelling at the sun coming up over the water. The sky became a clear blue, and the light caught the yachts in the sea. I listened to the sounds of the birds, and felt the warmth on my face, with my journal open to note down what I was grateful for.
From the table beside me, someone paused their business conversation and said, simply, "what a beautiful day." It was, and to me it became more so for knowing someone else was feeling the same thing, at the same moment.
There was a second reason for the morning being notable enough to begin this post with it. This was the same rooftop and the same view I had seen the morning before. The difference was that I had arranged this one.
It was the final day of a work trip, and I had selected my flight later in the day that I might have done so before and built the morning to give me time for a longer breakfast with some time for the beach and pool before the airport. It was a small change, but made the whole trip feel richer.
The optimiser
I travel very frequently, and my instinct is to optimise. On a morning for example, I plan in fifteen-minute increments, so packing and the airport and the transfers run clean and the disruption to my daily routine stays small.
But for years, the time for myself was whatever I could find in the gaps. A spare hour between meetings. The last few hours of a final day. Something I fit around the edges of everything that counted as real.
Recent I have changed this. I put the time for myself in the diary directly. A long breakfast. An hour by the sea. A specific slot, where I might not carry my phones and I am not reachable. It goes from time I hope to find, to time I have decided on in advance.
Why it works
It sounds like a minor shift, but I have found it has really profound impacts.
We all agree, in principle, that slowing down matters. That it is worth being grateful for where we are. But I feel that many of us, in particular when busy with our professional lives, treat it as something for once the real work is done, which often means it does not happen at all. The week fills. The gap we were saving never appears.
What changes when you schedule it is the status of the thing. A slot in the diary is a commitment. We keep commitments we have made visible to ourselves, in a way we never keep vague intentions. An hour for yourself in the calendar ranks alongside the meeting, not beneath it.
Where the mind goes
There is a behavioural point underneath this worth naming. Attention is finite. A mind occupied with the next task takes in very little of what is around it. We know the extreme version: on the really hard days in your life you can walk through a beautiful day and register none of it. The ordinary version is quieter, and far more common. The view is there; we are simply pointed elsewhere.
That morning was one of the best of the week. But only because I had made it possible. Five minutes of planning stood between me and missing it entirely.
We tend to say "what a beautiful day" only on the days one ambushes us. The stranger at the next table had been handed his moment by chance.
I’ve realised that you can increase the chance of these moments by simply being more intentional with the way we design our lives.
So this week, look at where your own time sits in your diary alongside that that you give to everyone else. If it isn't there, it may be worth thinking about what it is worth to you.
— AJ
On my bedside table
📚 Fiction · The forty rules of love — Elif Shafak (re-reading)
At a wedding this weekend, the grandfather of the groom delivered the below, beautifully conveying the weight of the words in the way I have never experienced in a church before:
💬 Quote · "These are the hands of your best friend, young and strong and full of love for you, that are holding yours on your wedding day, as you promise to love each other today, tomorrow, and forever.
These are the hands that will work alongside yours, as together you build your future.
These are the hands that will passionately love you and cherish you through the years, and with the slightest touch, will comfort you like no other.
These are the hands that will hold you when fear or grief fills your mind.
These are the hands that will, countless times, wipe the tears from your eyes; tears of sorrow, and tears of joy.
These are the hands that will tenderly hold your children.
These are the hands that will help you to hold your family as one.
These are the hands that will give you strength when you need it.
And lastly, these are the hands that even when wrinkled and aged, will still be reaching for yours, still giving you the same unspoken tenderness with just a touch." — Blessing of the Hands by Rev. Daniel L. Harris
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