Good-Bye Summer Break...Hello Year of “Right”As I write this post I am literally clinging to the last few hours of my summer break. It has been very restorative on many levels and I truly feel that I am in a very good place.I am “where I am” because of this summer break and for that I am extremely grateful (If this is the first post you are reading on my blog I encourage you to go back through my earlier posts from the summer for specific evidence).It occurred to me the other day that my concept of “year” might need to be adjusted based on the coming and going of summer. Stick with me here. As my summer ends a new school year begins. So, why not re-vision my concept of year based on this? Heck, it’s worth a try!As any reader of this blog knows, I have been dabbling with the concept of a “yearly theme” for quite some time now. In order to make my dabbling a little more purposeful, I am embarking on something new. I am claiming my first day back to school to be the first day of my new “yearly theme.” A lot of my recent writing has been focused around trying to figure out what that theme was going to be. I came to the conclusion that this year’s theme is going to be the Year of “Right.” My goal for the year is going to be to attempt to focus my attention on the Eightfold Path. I’ve spent the week thinking about how I will keep myself focused on my interpretation of this Buddhist practice. Many of you that read this blog also know that I use a technology called daily questions as a way to review the day based on things that are important to me. In preparation for the Year of “Right” I have re-visioned my daily questions to emulate a reflection on the day based on my attempts to practice, among other things; right action.I also wanted a way to gently think about my theme throughout the day in a way that was not too distracting. Harnessing the power of my Apple Watch, I created emoji-like reminders for two apps I use, Breathe and Due. These reminders are in the form of a question...for example 👉🏼🎬?=me thinking...Am I practicing right action? I have 5 set up in the Breathe app and 3 set up in the Due app for a total of 8...hence the eightfold path. The other day I set reminders up to “test” out how they would look when I get receive them on my watch...so I guess you could say that I am beta testing them until I go live! The 3 I will get on the Due app are time based...meaning they will appear each day at the same time whereas the 5 in the Breathe app will appear randomly between the hours of 7am and 12:30pm daily. The goal here is NOT necessarily to be thinking of any one of them individually when they appear. It’s more like, “Hey...you said you wanted to be more mindful of these things...what is happening right now?”I need to remind myself that this experiment is more about the journey not the destination. I have no control over the destination. I cannot go back and change the past. I can only be present...in the moment. It is within that moment that I have the best chance of being the best version of me!