How much water have you had today?

This would be my Mother’s response to virtually any issue you may encounter. In a bad mood? Got a headache? Slept like crap last night? This seems like such an oversimplification, but your body is made of sixty percent H2O. If the system is malfunctioning, common sense tells us that is a pretty good place to look first.

Our bodies and brains are very sophisticated machines. We tend to forget that sometimes. Understanding the math of it all, however, is still pretty simple. What goes in is balanced with what comes out. Energy is conserved. Not only are we fueled by what we eat and drink, but every stimuli around us brings with it an impact. Your friends, hobbies, shows, phones, job and kids can have a significant effect on your well being. In the words of my homie Thich Nhat Hanh, “we are but a sum total of our inputs.”

With a big life change comes an opportunity to peel back the layers and decide whether your litany of habits are worth keeping or need to be tossed in the bin. To start, the general look on my face could use significant improvement. I do my best not to be photographed, but the rare exceptions have captured pretty sour looks. “Here is Chappy in his native habitat and boy he sure looks grumpy.”

Forty years of life do provide occasional perspective. I may be one of the most impatient people on earth (working on that) but it is unreasonable to think I’ll be a fresh new person immediately. The first week of this new life was about examining how I fill my hours and sorting out what needs to go. This list is quite impressive.

One admittedly caustic practice has been the need to give my phone some attention at least fifty times per day. This mindless routine offered up no substance or utility. It’s as if I didn’t know what else to do but fire that puppy up and doom scroll away. My first official act of unemployment was to delete Slack (and it felt so very satisfying), but let’s not pin all of our shortcomings on one application.

The troublesome element at play here is my overwhelming urge for distraction. I feel so distracted at times that I can’t even pinpoint what I’m diverting attention from. I’ll have an audiobook in my ears and a TV on as I dart about doing anything that keeps me from sitting still and hearing the cries of adoration (I can only assume) from my children. Question: How can you be a peaceful human if you don’t invite any peace into your day?

On day one, I skipped the vitamin D3 supplement and headed straight out the front door. My walk was lovely. I worked in the yard, digging and planting until I had soaked through three shirts. Gardening is a medicinal exercise in my view because you can’t rush plants. You can walk circles around them and diligently tend to their assorted needs, but the bloom only appears when nature decides it is ready. How easily we trick ourselves into thinking that we can bend this world to our will. Order it online and it will be here tomorrow. Microwave on high for three minutes and voila - dinner is served. If we’re not careful, this persistent immediacy in all things can easily skew our perspective. I want to turn this tide with a lot of doing. From scratch, by hand, with love.

Many smart, quotable, and totally chill people in history have identified that giving of oneself for the good of others does wonders for your personal well-being. Also, facts. Having known this, you’d think I would be out every weekend, dragging the kids along for some humble acts of service. Not so much, and I’m a little ashamed of it, frankly. Time to change that! As if by serendipity, my first volunteer opportunity in this new era reunited me with a friend I hadn’t seen in many years. We caught up while planting seeds and learning a few gardening tips. I was all smiles on the drive home.

And on the third day, the Lord saw what he had done and proclaimed ‘Let there be golf.’ At least I think that’s how it goes. Anyway, I was blessed with a leisurely eighteen on a beautiful day with a good buddy. My phone stayed in the cart for hours.

It’s rare that we associate with friends outside our little bubble. In both human interactions mentioned above, neither exists within the two mile radius we Chapmans typically operate in. That is one thing I’d love to inject into my newly retooled schedule. I believe the mind goes on autopilot if you only do the same thing all the time. We constantly crave new, novel and deeper interactions.

The wife and I departed Thursday for a rare couples weekend at the beach. We had a house full of old friends and a marriage to celebrate, with a few evening events on the schedule. It was a hilarious social experiment seeing how everyone chose to spend their precious free days in the absence of children. I haven’t laughed that much in a long time. Best we could guess was it had been at least 8 years since we had done anything like that with this crew (legendary for our annual Festivus party). Time had aged us but it all felt familiar again.

Back at home, I’m not walking around grinning like an idiot at all hours yet, but I dare say that the look on my face is changing. Next week, we enter the idea phase.

‘I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.’ - Kurt Vonnegut