Dear all,
How often does your day fill with meetings, obligations, and responsibilities—
and yet the first thing we postpone, minimize, or erase… is time for ourselves?
Sometimes we give ourselves a few scattered moments.
Sometimes we deny ourselves that time altogether.
And yet, if we can make time for everyone else, surely we can make time for ourselves.
Time to breathe.
Time to read.
Time to learn.
Time to move.
Time to play.
Time simply to be.
Creating “me time” isn’t about indulgence.
It’s about intention.
It’s about recognizing that we are not machines, endlessly producing,
but human beings who need space to restore, to reflect, to reconnect.
Because without that space, we don’t just lose ourselves—
we diminish what we are able to give to others.
As Rabbi Hillel taught,
“If I am not for myself, who will be for me?”
Making a moment (or 2 moments, or 10 or 60) in time for ourselves is not stepping away from our responsibilities.
It is what allows us to meet them – as fully present souls.
With love and Shalom,
Rabbi Zachary R. Shapiro
