The other day on Greater Boston Emily Rooney interviewed Nina Sankovitch. author of “Tolstoy and the Purple Chair” and the accompanying blog, readallday.com. For an entire year, Sankovitch read a book a day, and blogged about each one as a way to deal with her grief from her sister’s untimely death from cancer.
Sankovitch isn’t the only one living out this very compelling idea of doing a similar thing every day for a year. There was Julia cooking a Julia Child’s recipe a day. There is Noah Scalin’s “365: A Daily Creative Journal: Make Something Every Day and Change your Life!” Gretchen Rubin, creator of The Happiness Project tells her readers: “I observed that it’s often easier for me to do something every day than to do it some days.” Check out these sites for inspiration.
I’m not talking here about our personal daily habits that don’t make one bit of difference in other people’s lives-- drinking coffee, checking email, reading the paper, even taking a walk. After all, if we run out of coffee one day, or if the paper doesn’t get delivered, no one but us will know or care.
What makes Sankovitch’s commitment to read a book a day so compelling is that she announced her intention out loud and promised to share her experience with others. People who got wind of her blog, started counting on her each day, and I bet she didn’t want to let them down.
I never promised to post every day, but I do sense a obligation to keep cottage by the sea going on a regular basis. After all, it doesn’t feel right to tell people about my blog and then post sporadically. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve missed a daily quote; you can pretty much count on that. I do my best to post a blog every other day, but a post a day is pretty appealing—just not always practical.
For me, silence, solitude and simplicity is not about being a hermit, but about sharing from that deep spot in me.
Sankovitch isn’t the only one living out this very compelling idea of doing a similar thing every day for a year. There was Julia cooking a Julia Child’s recipe a day. There is Noah Scalin’s “365: A Daily Creative Journal: Make Something Every Day and Change your Life!” Gretchen Rubin, creator of The Happiness Project tells her readers: “I observed that it’s often easier for me to do something every day than to do it some days.” Check out these sites for inspiration.
I’m not talking here about our personal daily habits that don’t make one bit of difference in other people’s lives-- drinking coffee, checking email, reading the paper, even taking a walk. After all, if we run out of coffee one day, or if the paper doesn’t get delivered, no one but us will know or care.
What makes Sankovitch’s commitment to read a book a day so compelling is that she announced her intention out loud and promised to share her experience with others. People who got wind of her blog, started counting on her each day, and I bet she didn’t want to let them down.
I never promised to post every day, but I do sense a obligation to keep cottage by the sea going on a regular basis. After all, it doesn’t feel right to tell people about my blog and then post sporadically. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve missed a daily quote; you can pretty much count on that. I do my best to post a blog every other day, but a post a day is pretty appealing—just not always practical.
For me, silence, solitude and simplicity is not about being a hermit, but about sharing from that deep spot in me.