December 2, 2025
There’s something almost brutally honest about Sinclair Lewis calling winter an occupation. He didn’t say winter was a mood or a vibe or a seasonal shift. He went straight to the thing all adults understand too well: a job. And not even the kind with benefits or holiday bonuses. Winter is the job that shows up in your kitchen uninvited, hands you a clipboard full of tasks, and says, “By the way, the sun now clocks out at 4:18.”
Winter really does feel like work. The cold is a project. The darkness is a project. Even walking from the car to the front door becomes a small performance review. But beneath all the hassle, winter has a way of revealing the parts of our lives that need our attention, the parts we’d probably ignore if summer kept distracting us with cookouts and golden-hour optimism.
When the days get shorter, something in us gets quieter. Some people fight it. Some people collapse into it. And some people look for meaning in it — because winter forces that. It slows us down. It makes us uncomfortable just enough to notice what we’ve been outrunning. Busy seasons, heavy seasons, seasons where your motivation disappears like it left a “be back in 15 minutes” sign and never returned — winter has a way of holding all of that up to the light.
Winter is work, but it’s also an invitation. An invitation to reassess. To reorganize. To rest without calling it laziness. To warm yourself in ways that aren’t about heat, but about connection. A warm mug in your hands. Your kid laughing under three layers of pajamas. A moment of stillness at the window as snow falls in its slow, deliberate way.
And like any occupation, winter gives you feedback if you pay attention. Are you taking care of yourself? Are you showing up for the things that matter? Are you allowing the pauses in your life to actually be pauses? Winter is the season that forces questions you might avoid the rest of the year, but they’re worth asking. It’s not glamorous. It’s not always fun. But it’s real.
Lewis wasn’t dismissing winter — he was understanding it. Winter demands something of us. But maybe that’s the point. It’s work that shapes us, steadies us, and prepares us for the seasons where everything speeds up again. And as strange as it sounds, there’s comfort in knowing winter won’t last. The job is temporary. The contract ends. The light returns. But how we show up for it — how we endure it, learn from it, and even appreciate it — that’s the part that lasts.
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