By Dawn Onley

Every so often, I need to take a break from life’s busyness and noise.

It normally happens in the fall, as the leaves cover the ground and temperatures get cooler. The change makes me want to retreat under a blanket with a hot cup of tea and an engrossing book.

In the waning months of the year, I desire simplicity and silence to give me the time and space to hear my thoughts and to organize my actions. This is usually the time when I begin assessing my progress against my goals and working on my vision board for the coming year. It’s when I stop overbooking my weekends and leave my calendar open for free time to brainstorm ideas and work on projects. It’s the time when I get super focused.

This year is no different.

Three weeks ago, I temporarily deactivated my personal Facebook page because it was commanding too much of my time. In those three weeks, I have rediscovered sleep. I have traveled. I have spent more time at the dinner table with my family. I have read a couple of good books, including Tim Storey’s Utmost Living, and it reinforced for me the need to break from the noise and to set aside quiet time to be still and to appreciate the moment.

“You’re going to start your utmost life by checking out of the noise and bustle and busyness and finding some quiet,” Storey says in the book. “You have to stop, if only for a while, all the usual chores and duties and appointments in your life. We can get so busy that we become human doings, not human beings.”

Let us not get so busy with the hustle and bustle of life that we neglect to relax and breathe and just be.

As the holiday season approaches, let us all take the necessary time that we need to feel alive and to recommit ourselves to what’s important in life – our family, friends, and our dreams.