October is my birth month. While I do not regularly celebrate my birthday with elaborate parties or gifts, I appreciate life and the opportunity to move another year forward.

Many others share this birth month with me. This year, however, marks a new kind of celebration for me.

I find it difficult to imagine expressing all the love and appreciation a person deserves in a single day. I would rather offer acts of love and honor throughout the year, in the ordinary moments when we have opportunities to care for one another.

I also appreciate those special days when people are showered with gifts and affection. Over these decades of life, I have received numerous surprises and thoughtful tributes. I am grateful for them.

A Different Kind of Celebration

This year, I have decided to do something new. I will use the entire month of October for focused reflection, and I invite you to come along with me.

If you can journey with me for the whole month, outstanding. If you can join for a few days, or pause for a few moments here and there, you are welcome. I believe whatever time we spend in honest, healthy reflection has value.

Bring your journal, your voice recorder, or another way to capture your feelings, thoughts, and ideas. These tools can help you slow down and notice your environment, your interactions, and your responses.

When Familiar Routines Keep Us in Place

We often move through time with little more awareness than the recognition that another day has passed. Our lives are filled with busyness. In cities like Los Angeles, the pace can make us feel like hamsters on a wheel: constantly in motion, yet remaining in the same place.

We follow routines that may no longer serve us. Because they are familiar, we continue them, even when they repeatedly produce outcomes we do not want.

Research offers a concrete example of how this can happen. In a 2011 study, David Neal and his colleagues found that people with strong habits of eating popcorn at the cinema ate similar amounts whether the popcorn was fresh or stale. Their familiar setting helped keep the behavior going, even when the food was less enjoyable. Changing the setting or asking participants to eat with their other hand disrupted that pattern. The study illustrates how familiar cues can sustain a habit despite a less satisfying outcome.¹

That finding invites us to examine our own routines. What have we continued simply because it is what we usually do?

Consider these questions slowly. You do not need to answer them all at once.

• Which routine keeps me busy but leaves me feeling that little has changed?
• What outcome do I hope for, and what outcome does this routine actually produce?
• What tends to happen just before I repeat a response I later regret?
• What small change could I try, and how would I recognize whether it was helping?

The Map and the Lantern

During October, I will be reflecting on where I am now: the map. I will also consider where I want to go, intentionally directing my attention toward choices that support that direction: the lantern.

As I reflect, I want to remain attentive to God.

In Acts, we meet Lydia, a businesswoman who dealt in expensive purple cloth. She worshipped God and listened as Paul spoke. Scripture describes her as one “whose heart the Lord opened.” She responded by being baptized and offering hospitality to Paul and his companions. —Acts 16:14–15, KJV.

Lydia’s story invites me to consider my own willingness to listen and respond. As I notice the patterns of my days, I want to bring what I see before God and remain open to His direction.

For me, this month will include gratitude for the life I have lived, honest attention to the life I am living, and prayerful consideration of what I choose next.

Some routines may deserve to remain. Others may need to change. I want to take enough time to recognize the difference.

An Invitation to Begin

To begin, choose one day from this past week. An ordinary day will do. Look back at how you spent it, allowing yourself to notice without rushing to judge.

What did you do for others? What did you do for yourself? Which activities were intentional, and which did you simply do out of habit?

Consider what motivated you. Was it love, responsibility, enjoyment, obligation, fear, or something else? Your reasons may differ from one activity to another.

Then consider what a renewed outlook might make possible. If you approached each day expecting something positive, how might that influence what you noticed, how you responded, or what you chose to do? We cannot determine everything a day will bring, but we can consider how we want to participate in it.

As you reflect, bring these questions into your journal or voice recording:

• What do you want to feel?
• What do you want to become?
• What is your purpose?

You do not need complete answers today. Over the month of October, I hope we will return to these questions and add depth and meaning to our answers through what we notice, what we learn, and how we choose to respond.

You do not need an October birthday to join me. You only need a willingness to pause, notice, and reflect.

We can begin with today.

The map shows me what is. The lantern guides what I choose next.

¹ Neal, D. T., Wood, W., Wu, M., & Kurlander, D. (2011). “The Pull of the Past: When Do Habits Persist Despite Conflict With Motives?” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37(11), 1428–1437. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167211419863