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FOBETEO 2020: Rituals and Traditions

Posted by Kim on December 4, 2020, 9:00am

Although I'm not religious in the slightest, something I've always loved is ritual and tradition.

Time is a precious resource. Spending time on someone - or something - is love. One of the most powerful ways to show that something matters to you is to actually schedule time for it, and to protect that time, to make sure that that time in your schedule actually gets used for what you said it would be.

Traditions and rituals can be rote, sure. You can carry them out in such a way that they don't have more than a surface level of meaning.

But traditions and rituals can also be used to fill the year up with what's actually important in life, give those things a protected place where the necessary hustle of day to day surviving doesn't obscure them.

For a long time, I named my favorite "holiday" as NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), because it created time in my calendar for judgement-free, editing-free creative writing. It challenged me to devote a large amount of time for a whole month to something I knew mattered to me; book writing and world building. It helped me make sure I put that time in, no matter what.

I know some people worry that events like mother's day, or heck, even FOBETEO itself, decrease the value of well wishes (and kudos!) sent during those calendar days. They worry that their friends might feel that the only reason they took the time to figure out what their feelings were and how to phrase them was for the sake of a 32x32 collection of pixels. My own feeling is that the act of setting aside the time is proof positive of sincerity; the fact that we all agree to set aside the same stretch of time doesn't change the value of that time. It lets us show a glimmer of our best, most ideal selves, in a sustainable way, without preventing us from also doing the normal, important routines that life demands of us to stay alive.

In the case of NaNoWriMo, the fact that hundreds of thousands of people all around the world all agreed with me on that same stretch of time to elevate creative writing as the most important pursuit just for that month didn't make the ritual of writing less powerful or important for me personally. Rather, being in agreement on that special time we were setting aside for writing helped me to stick to my conviction that it was worth going the extra mile, waking up early, going to bed late, writing in the bathroom when I needed an extra moment -- it couldn't happen every day, but we could all work, together, to make it a priority just then. It was proof not just that creative writing was important to me, but deeply valued by a large swath of humanity at large. That, to me, made the tradition even more powerful. We were linking arms as a people to say, "This is important to our experience of being human, and we will find the time for it together."
I hope that's what we're creating here with FOBETEO - the space and time to be mindful about the importance of our relationships, online and off, and how we can better care for them. Thank you for joining me in creating and protecting this chosen time.

Today's FOBETEO exercise to nurture our friendships and ourselves: think about how you are spending your time. Does the way you allot your time reflect your values? Does it reflect the value of the people in your life? Explore ways you can readjust how you use your time to line up just a little more with what - and who - you truly care about. Don't try to completely overhaul your life! Just 15-20 minutes in the week can be deeply meaningful, and is much more possible to stick to.

Set yourself up for success. If you decide you're going to do a 15 minute call with your mother each week, set up a reminder on your phone to prompt you each week. If you decide you're going to limit yourself to an hour on Facebook every day so you have more time for creative pursuits, install a plugin that tracks how much time you spend on Facebook and cuts you off when you hit that amount.

If you'd like to share your tiny time goal here, please feel free to add a comment! :)

Comments

Raspberry_Beret

December 4, 2020
9:08am

I think sometimes we take our RP partners and Group Friends for granted. FOBETEO is a fantastic way to focus on and re-center the idea of appreciation. I don't feel that it cheapens anything in giving thanks and kudos to those who deserve it. Perhaps it may be the only time of year someone sends a kudos, but the fact is that they sent it, and that is wonderful. Any and all glitter bombs, and kudos and good wishes, to me at least, are welcomed.

MercyInReach

December 4, 2020
9:07am

How fitting. I just finished NaNoWriMo and my current goal is to relax until December 15th before I get back to work.

I want to play video games 2 hours a day. Call a few people for an hour a day. And make time for a quiet dinner with myself every day. ^-^