Back to School
With the first days of September each year, a certain nostalgia washes over me. Here in Canada, early September means the Labour Day Holiday long weekend, then the beginning of a new school year.
Having spent an inordinate amount of time in my younger years in school, I still experience a special feeling as summer passes into autumn and the new academic year commences.
New books, new courses, new profs, new beginnings. Back in the day, it also meant new clothing, which was expected to last throughout the academic year.
To me, it was always a time of new beginnings, a time of personal refreshment and repurposing. A time to reorganize the study space, to set new and higher goals, a time to “buckle down” and try even harder than last year.
As September progresses, the first hints of autumn are in the air – cooler nights, even an occasional early frost in the morning, the hints of autumn colours in the leaves, and just a general crispness. It’s good to be alive, and good to be alive with a purpose.
Decades later, the same emotions return, with the same urges to tidy the desk and the workspace, to set out new goals, to “buckle down” to achieve more and better.
These are good habits. Life is all about change and achievement, and occasions such as the start of the new school year, even if only a distant memory, give us the opportunity and the mindset to shake off those “lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer” and get down to the business of self-improvement.
Welcome to September!