No matter if we are young retiree, workers, or nostalgic for the student life, this “Back to school” period is a special moment in the year. Although we try to reduce its effects with the creation of the concept of «pre-entry», in fact, it is well anchored in our collective unconscious. It’s an important transition from the childhood to the adult life.
The first Monday of September usually marks a turning point, following the end of the summer break. If some rush when others agitate, there are also those who will have more anticipated this return.
Called “Back to School” within the distribution sector, this period is anticipated long months in advance by these same actors who must ensure timely delivery of sufficient products and foodstuffs in store shelves.
September month marks both a recovery and a break rhythm. Both follow the summer “break” where everyone had the freedom to relax, alone or accompanied, in a lazy or more active style. Just like a successful day that is prepared and often anticipates the day before, the new season is prepared upstream. The human being is thus made that we need a certain routine, time benchmarks. Since school is compulsory, the new school year is imposed as source of unknown in our unconscious. From three and a half years, six years for others, we are conditioned to live this discovery of the school as an intense moment. Obvious social connection, it is where we began to communicate with classmates. It was both worrying and reassuring to see that other friends were in the same case. And if the cries of some were not the most tranquilizing, fortunately we could count on the help of some teachers or teacher’s helpers. This comforting gesture accompanied by a smile could be enough to deal with this feeling of insecurity.
Very early on, without knowing it, we had to leave our comfort zone to find our place in a new environment, a new setting. This is also the first challenge facing our offspring. Let’s not forget that if we start a work, a recently validated project, with a team still to be discovered, we also find ourselves in the same case as our children. So, let’s not be too demanding with them and even less so with ourselves. It’s natural to have a little apprehension. The greatest artists, despite dozens and dozens of performances, don´t they have always stage fright before returning to the stage?
Moreover, one of them, member of the French comedy, Louis Jouvet, had replied to an actress who boasted that she never has this feeling of fear that “it would come the day when… she would have talent!” Without a transition, is it not legitimate to consider that the new School year can be the most beautiful moments of the year? We are in a special energy, almost renewed, after a summer break that has allowed us to relax, most often with family or friends. Each of us had the opportunity to do the activities of our choice. Take a break, relax and oxygenate to see more clearly in our life and our desires. Admittedly, this new year marks a new reality, the need to respect social distancing. Nevertheless, after months of lockdown, nature’s call is back and the desire to meet again our colleagues, our habits, and everything that looks like a normal and real life.
The New School Year is an opportunity to give a fresh start, to make new resolutions, to take another dynamic. It is above all a question of state of mind, of desire to go forward, to clean up one’s life to move forward more serenely. In short, to (re)start while capitalizing on the last sun lights of the summer, officially until September 21.
For this new school year, why not try to replace the “or” “and”? In other words, allow yourself to do more binding in your projects, tasks to accomplish, activities. Rather than having to give up, to organize yourself more time for the little things of the everyday life or big projects that make you happy and animate you.
Tea or coffee? Salt or pepper? Work or leisure? And if you could choose not to choose, what would you decide to accomplish? In what order? Of course, we cannot achieve everything at the same time, but it is quite possible to organize our time differently to «accomplish» a maximum of things in the long term.
If you had to choose one important project to carry out for this period, what would it be? Redo your bathroom? Move closer to your home land? Request one or more days of homeworking? Register for this dance activity on Thursday evening? Be part of a marketing network to increase your revenue level in addition to your current job? Formalize the separation or union with your life partner? Get married? Resign because the work environment has become too hard? On the contrary, be proactive to make your position heard? To set up your own business? Simply tell your boss, customers, employees that you are here for them and that they can count on you.
As you can see, there are as many projects as there are different people and desires. It is up to you to choose your priority, and perhaps to spontaneously answer the following question:
If today was your “back to school” special moment: What will be your priority project that you would like to identify and, above all, see implemented in the coming months?”
Note: Don’t hesitate to write in your agenda what comes to mind to give yourself the means to achieve this desire until… the next school year”.
Welcome back to everyone and…
Enjoy the way…
« Reset your life ».
Mickaël Garin