By Riyad A. Shahjahan You have set aside time to write. You know what you plan to work on for the next 15 minutes, 30 minutes, or hour. You sit down to begin — or perhaps you are already writing — when suddenly an urge arises to do something else. Maybe you feel compelled to check the laundry, browse the news, scroll through social media, make a quick phone call, or do a bit more…
By Kimine Mayuzumi There is nothing passive about stopping, and when you decide to go, it’s a different kind of going because you stopped. — Jon Kabat-Zinn A few weeks ago, I led a session called Exhale – Reset through Reflection and Practice for a group of academics transitioning out of their academic year. I was reminded again how exhausting this season can be for many academics — trying to wrap things up while…
By Kimine Mayuzumi Ten years ago, I wrote a short post called “5 Ways to Slow Down NOW.” At the time, I didn’t know whether anyone would read it. I simply felt pulled to explore gentler ways of living and working — especially in environments organized around speed, output, and performance. I kept writing, not because I had a grand vision for what Being Lazy and Slowing Down (BLSD) would become, but because each piece…
By Riyad A. Shahjahan My recently published conceptual paper “Am I a Scholar” began with a keynote invitation. I’d been asked to deliver a keynote at an international forum I hadn’t attended in some time. The theme was “I Am a Scholar.” But as I sat with that phrase, it didn’t settle in very well. The certainty of it felt out of step for me. My experiences have been shaped more by ambiguity, deferral, and…
By Riyad A. Shahjahan When graduate students and early career faculty struggle to clarify an argument, I always give the same advice: find a model to follow. Look for an article, proposal, or dissertation that resonates to help articulate and organize your own ideas. Study how it builds its case, what kinds of evidence it uses, and how it structures its ideas. This is exactly what helped me develop a concept I call decolonial…
