Areligious

Realising that I’m a pretty areligious person.

And I don’t mean I’m against religion. I’m not.

But in the way that religious can mean “ scrupulously and conscientiously faithful” per Webster, I’m not really much of that toward anything.

How It Came Up

I was thinking about today when I received a newsletter from my old high school, Brophy College Prep, in Arizona. They have a massive alumni movement. And parents get super, super involved. They get so invested in the fundraisers (over the top fashion shows, golf tournaments, etc.) and events. I’ve seen so much glowing praise from parents for the school. They have this “Man for Others” concept that I see mentioned on social and other places.

Back when I was there, it was still a Jesuit run school. I don’t remember that concept though. And it certainly wasn’t a school whose identity was based in altruism. I was sent there because they were know for great academics (and I was raised Catholic). It was a good school. I’m happy I went there. But it didn’t become part of my identity. I didn’t continue to do things with the school after I left. I wasn’t rabid to send my son there.

Other Institutions

Similar thing with a lot of other areas.

Same with my religion. I was raised Catholic. Went to Catholic grade school, Jesuit high school, Jesuit college. I’m for it. I’m about the basic principles of Christianity and what it stands for. But it’s not a major focus of my time.

Most things aren’t.

I feel the same about my university, Georgetown University, too. Also a great school. Really enjoyed it. Loved the campus. Loved the city. Never been back.

I participated in some organisational things but never got too rabid about them. Spent a bunch of time & energy attending some Scottsdale Charro events but just couldn’t commit. Not my people (other than a couple).

Gangplank was probably the closest.

Interests

And then other things like healthspan, paddling, volleyball, etc. They’ve all taken up large parts of my life in phases but I’m not too religious about those.

After a year of going pretty crazy on healthspan, I’m much more moderate. Just trying to fashion my life to support it.

But I’m not religious about many facets of that. I did keto. I like low carb. But I don’t religiously adhere to any of the diet camps and/or participate in the diet wars.

I’m also not wed to any certain training modality – bodyweight, olympic lifting, yoga, biking, running. I try to take some from all of them.

Paddling too. I went crazy and moved to Hawaii to paddle outrigger canoe but once I left there, it was unavailable. We found stand up paddling and have done that over the years but not in any maniacal fashion.

Same with volleyball. When I was single and lived in California, every weekend was about beach volleyball. And prior to that in Arizona, I played indoor with friends maybe 4 nights a week?

Well after we had kids, we started playing with friends again & had a good go but I haven’t played in years.

No video games addiction. Nothing really like that.

Work Areas

Same with other areas of my work. I’m a WordPress fan all the way and that’s all we work with but I never got fully involved with the community like so many. So many fold their personal communities around it.

Same with Infusionsoft/Keap. Our main marketing automation platform but it didn’t become everything like it does for so many, whose communities are built around it.

Same with Digital Marketer. Really respect the methodology and apply it but didn’t become one of the crew.

Just Wondering…

I guess I was just noticing something missing in me that I see in many people – who seem to be religious about at least something??

Maybe it all relates to that quality Oliver Burkeman talks about in his book, Four Thousand Weeks, where we avoid committing to this because then our options are “open”????

This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot and working on. I’ve bought in to the fact that we all just have too many tasks to ever get them all done. And that we just need to accept that and make sure we’re spending the time on the things we think are most important. And that we’ll consciously be not doing many of the things we could or are supposed to or even want to.

Maybe as that crystallises more, I’ll finally become religious about something?

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