Seth Haines's Blog, page 11
January 17, 2020
The First Friday Poem: Advent #1
Here I go, carving out a new streak. As I wrote this week, I’m setting out to publish a poem each Friday. Why? Because writing poetry opens my eyes to see the world differently and stretches my imagination. It serves as a creative tool for the examined life, too.
I’ve been working today’s poem since the Advent season, those few weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. It was a particularly dark season in some ways, a season in which my family parted ways with a church we’d been members of for...
January 16, 2020
A Dry January Update
In the new decade, I offered a sort of challenge: participate in Dry January with me, a month of laying off your particularly addiction, vice, bad habit, or coping mechanism of choice. Some of you might have chosen to lay off the booze or porn or shopping. For those of us who might not struggle with those particular behaviors (or for those of us who’ve struggled so hard in the past that we gave them up forever), we might have chosen to abstain from difference vices. What was my particular Dry...
January 15, 2020
What is the Streak: How to Form a Habit That Sticks
It’s a popular piece of productivity urban legend shared by Brad Isaacs, popularized by LifeHacker, and now found in every habit-formation book known to man. (I’ve read some version of the story in three books in the last year alone.) Isaacs, a young comedian working the open-mic scene, bumped into Jerry Seinfeld and asked him for the recipe to his secret sauce. How’d he become a better comedian? “Write jokes every day,” Seinfeld said, but he didn’t stop there. He offered Isaacs some...
January 14, 2020
Daily Creation: Keep a Streak Alive
The unexpected morning call. The throw-together wardrobe. The pre-rush-hour rush hour. The hustle. The client fire drill. The chance meeting with the old-timer in the coffee shop when all you want is a cup of joe. The next client fire drill. Another rush. Another hustle. The skipped lunch, skipped meditation, skipped afternoon walk around the building. The fire and grind of a burned down day.
Welcome to January 14, 2020.
Some days run hot, threaten to overheat on the highway of life. That’s...
January 13, 2020
A Public Service Announcement: Wake Up.
Today, I’m taking a brief hiatus from our daily examinations to drop a PSA and invite you to a very important group. Let’s call it The Group of Waking Up.
The Book of Waking Up: Experiencing The Divine Love That Orders a Life released this week! It’s been such an incredible launch week. At one point, the Little Book That Could was ranked #248 of ALL BOOKS ON AMAZON! Now, I don’t get all wrapped up in figures and numbers (or do I?), but this is an incredible accomplishment, and there’s no way...
January 10, 2020
Waking Routines: What's Yours?
A good man, a downright prince of a gentleman I’m pleased to call uncle, makes his home in South Louisiana, the state where angels and saints take up residence. He’s a man of definitive tastes: an andouille connoisseur; an unabashed Tiger fan; a weekend boat captain who knows his way around the South Louisiana marsh maze. He’s holy-ish, makes his way to the church house on Sundays, says his prayers, reads his scriptures, and keeps the Lord’s name out of his swears. He visits his inlaws...
January 9, 2020
What is the Shape of Your Waking (This is Not a Metaphor)
What is the shape of your waking, your morning? Do you roll out of bed after slapping the snooze button three times, only six hours of rest under your belt? Do you reach for the coffee to wake from perpetual sleep deprivation? Do you sit in your chair, static as a log, waiting till the caffeine kicks in so you can slog through another day? Do you scroll endlessly on your phone, using the blue light to wake you?
What is the shape of your waking, your morning?
It’s a simple question, one I’m...
January 8, 2020
Starting Brushfires: The Book of Waking Up
Three photos of Amber in three days? Let’s be honest: If you were married to her, wouldn’t you post photos of her again and again?
Yesterday, The Book of Waking Up left the warehouse and made its way to your doors. And though I believed in this book, I had no idea it’d resonate the way it has. So, thank you for investing in this project, a project that was a labor of love years in the making.
This book isn’t only my book. This is our book.Work through the content in The Book of Waking Up....
January 7, 2020
Wake Up to a New Book! (Come celebrate with me.)
If my daily writing has been characterized by anything, it’s been the theme of waking. Waking from our addictions, habits, and attachments. Waking to the Divine Love that might reorder our lives. All that writing has led to today, the day The Book of Waking Up: Experiencing the Divine Love that Reorders a Life releases!
When I put the final period on The Book of Waking Up, I called Amber. “I feel like I’ve finished a life work,” I said, and I meant it. In fact, if I never wrote another book,...
January 6, 2020
It's Not Enough to Quit. Replace Vice With Ritual.
The Book of Waking Up releases in just one day!
In the throes of a twenty-year affair with coffee, I wanted to make a change. A morning half-pot habit left me feeling jittery, dehydrated, and somewhat bombastic, as my coworkers can attest. I wanted to make a change, wanted to start my day with less coffee (which is not to say no coffee) and more water.
I decided I’d decouple my coffee habit from waking. Instead, I’d create a new first-thing morning routine, one which included water. And to do...
