September scaries?

It's that time of year and you see many folks on campus with varying degrees of affliction. Students scurrying past you between classes, staff members emailing angry screeds before reflecting on their tone and content, the blood-shot looks of bewilderment at imminent deadlines and overflowing inboxes. Yes, it is the start of the academic year.

April gets to be foolish, May is merry, and December can be the most wonderful time of the year, but what about September? It doesn't just mark the start of a new school year, but also the end of summer in the northern hemisphere. Days are shorter, colder, and wetter while schedules are suddenly filled with class meetings, assignments, seminars, and social reunions with colleagues. The shift in season also brings about (at least for me) earlier and busier commutes, which means darker mornings and shorter sleep times. All of this is stressful, if not scary (although October could be a better fit given Halloween). Maybe it isn't a coincidence that September is historically a bad month for stock markets as well.

I would like to remind myself that change is good and inevitable, and that fear is a state of mind. And then to take a deep breath or three. After that, I can ask myself: would it be the end of the world if I asked for an extension to a referee report expected by an academic journal? Or to say no to a LinkedIn request because I don't have it in me (or the time) to discuss things that I don't care about? To forebear others who may just be having a bad day and hope others do the same when those come my way?

Maybe this is a bit too zen and new-agey, but that is also the point: to live and let live. As the Dutch would say, doe maar gewoon dan doe je al gek genoeg, which I very roughly translate as to just be your crazy self. With some constraints, of course, depending on the setting and context (i.e., be professional and mind boundaries). And if people handle stress differently from me, that's okay too. 

And going back to the issue of deadlines and due dates, I am just meeting mine for this blog post. So hooray for that and to the end of this slog of a month. And if that is not enough to get me through the next week or so, Oktoberfest is just around the corner. Proost!