[Project Shalom] Week 1, Day 1: the impetus and waking up

Shalom peace, or more accurately translated in Hebrew, wholeness. In Israel, people greet each other with the word ‘Shalom’ as they meet and as they leave, wishing the other wholeness in every way – physically, emotionally, spiritually. So, what is wholeness, and more importantly, am I whole?

I thought this would be an appropriate question to ask during a transition period. These in-between times are like the inflection points of a curve (for those of you who need a refresher on calculus, it’s the point at which the 2nd derivative changes from positive to negative, or where the curve changes from a smiley to a sad face). During them, we reflect on the past “curve” and see if that is where we would like to be headed. If not, we make a change and do something different. An inflection point is where we determine direction – the sign of our second derivative.

So, to answer the posed question, and also to get direction, I have been doing a lot of reading. By that, I mean any spare time I have is spent holed up in a library with a 20-book worth stack beside me as I leaf through the pages and scribble down any notes (the consequence of not having a Singapore ID and thus not being able to borrow books).

One book that has especially impacted me is “7: the Experimental Mutiny Against Excess” by Jen Hatmaker. The self-documented narrative traces the journey of one woman’s rebellion against the consumeristic excess of modern American culture. It is based off of the concept of 7 as a whole number in the Bible and thus by getting rid of the 7 ‘excesses’, one a month, she strives to be whole. The book is a candid, hilarious journey of letting go of the author’s soul ties to food, clothes, possessions, media, stress, spending, and waste. Though the letting go part was not easy, she learnt the value of the simple life and realized that we can actually live with a lot less than what we currently have.

Needless to say, I was inspired. I live with too much, and have picked up the bad habits of believing I am entitled to all of it. Yet, it was when I was in China, living on 2 T-shirts a month without connection to the outside world, did I feel most free and alive. So, during the 2 months I am here in Singapore, in commemoration of this transition period and in preparation for the next period in my life, I have decided to embark on Project Shalom – a 7-week journey to wholeness by eliminating unhealthy excesses and paring down to the simple life.

The seven excesses that I have chosen that are pertinent to me are: food, media, ignorance, dispassion, chemicals, laziness and stress. I will be documenting my journey here – firstly to hold me accountable to my commitments, and secondly, to encourage anyone who would like to try a similar thing.

This week, I will begin with laziness. I am the first to confess that I often put my comfort above the need for wholeness and have bought into this societal idea that somehow, waking up at 7:00a.m. is an atrocity to humanity and exercising everyday is only for those who want to run marathons. Perhaps they are just excuses to assuage our fears that we are being lazy. The Bible is clear, however:

How long will you lie down, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest and your poverty will come in like a vagabond, and your need like an armed man – Proverbs 6:9-11

So, this week, I choose to exchange my laziness for physical and spiritual health. I commit to 2 things:

• Waking up at 6:00a.m. this week (because realistically, none of this will happen if I’m not doing it in the morning)
• 70 minutes of “no-laziness” every morning – this will include both exercise physically and spiritually. I can choose how to divide the time, but it has to add up to 70.

This morning, my alarm went off at 6, but I confess that the first thought in my head was that the sweat-drenched run I went on in the Botanic Gardens yesterday must count for something, and I rolled over in bed, only to wake up at 6:30. But all is not lost, and I did complete 20 min of pilates-type exercise, and the 50 min of devotionals. It is always an uphill battle getting my schedule established, but it was a good start to the week of defeating laziness.