Summer Solstice

Today is the summer solstice, which is the peak of summer and the longest day. The earth travels around the sun, and the experience of sunlight changes as the Earth moves around the sun. In the northern hemisphere, it is the might days of summer featuring great light in the early morning and the sun setting late in the day. With all this daylight, the summer is that time of the year of intense work and focus. The image of farming comes to mind to tend to the fields, deal with critters, and keep things running in the drive toward great harvest and abundance of the fall.

I think the challenge of summer is consistency and hanging in there day after day, moment to moment to moment.

“Consistency is more important than excellence” was a phrase I had on my wall at the peak of my work in the software industry. I managed teams of technical writers at the time, and we were driven by deadlines and a sense of purpose that sometimes felt like urgency. Sometimes big efforts were necessary. But little consistent efforts every day mattered.. This I referred to as consistency. Some people balked at the phrase about consistency being so important and more important that excellence, because they thought putting consistency first meant mediocrity. This is not what the phrase means all. Maybe it the humility of it all, how focusing on those little things we do every day adds up and makes a difference. If consistency is a goal, then it is about making a consistent effort. Every day. True consistency is about putting in the work especially when it feels hard, especially when discouragement is not too far away.

That’s the challenge of summer. With the great summer weather turning up the heat and the bright sun shining in your eyes and lighting up everything, the temptation is to go out and play at the beach or the mountains and just get away from all that hard work! But keeping consistent about things like sleep, diet, exercise, meditation, inner and outer work, and social and emotional bonds requires making consistent efforts each day. Some of the efforts can be small and meaningful in the moment and reveal themselves to be the very pattern of life at the end of the day, the week, the moment in time that gets measured.

The idea is to find a way to be like the sun and simply shine on.