Needful Things

How often do you picture yourself as the person you want to be, rather than the person you actually are.  Don't we all want to be the best we can be?  I know that I have a list of things I want to work on in myself.  Some are small, some are more than I think I can handle, but all of them are going to require daily effort.  And there is the problem.  I get lazy and find too many distractions and excuses.  I think we all do, but the most successful of us don't let the distractions and excuses get in the way of attaining our dreams.  

So, in a concerted effort to find some accountability (again), I want to list some of my goals, and keep a regular record of my efforts and my thoughts and feelings around my efforts.  Maybe I can get some encouragement and advice from people who have gone through the same challenges, or are currently going through them.  Maybe I can offer insight to people who are thinking and feeling the same things.  Maybe no one else will read this and it will be more a introspective for myself.  Either way, I think chronicling all of it will be helpful.

I want to start writing more, in order to gather my thoughts, to force me to think more critically and rationally, to express my opinions and thoughts on things that affect me and my world, to get feedback on these things that will force me to consider other perspectives.

I want to control my dietary habits, which are not as healthy as I want them to be.  I want to eat healthy, whole foods, fruits and vegetables and whole grains and responsibly raised meats.  I want to be more in control of what I put into my body.  Right now food is very much an addiction for me.  There isn't really a rehab for food addicts, and it isn't as if I can go cold turkey.  But I am exercising regularly and have lost nearly 100 pounds, and I want to lose 80 more, so diet control is very necessary.  I also have struggled with Type 2 diabetes, and am currently not taking medicine, and I don't want to go back to taking medicine, so I have GOT to get my eating under control.  I want my body to have the right fuel for the active healthy lifestyle I want to attain.

I want my exercise routine to be more consistent.  I want to go to the gym and do a weight circuit every other day and a cardio routine on the alternate days.  Losing weight is one of my most important goals, because of the lifestyle I want to live.  I want to be an active person.  I want to be able to try different activities, like skiing or snowboarding, or get back into horseback riding.  The point is, I want to be active, for the rest of my life and so need to maintain a regular exercise routine, so that I can be ready for any activity that comes my way.  

I want to reach out to other people, I want to gain friends and a community.  In the past I have not wanted to make the effort of maintaining friendships, but that is just laziness, and in truth I love people.  I need social connections, because I am a social person and thrive in social situations.  I have previously lacked confidence, because of my appearance mostly, but am growing out of that.  I want to put more effort into creating relationships with people.

I want to find a meaningful job.  I want more than to bring in an income, though that is very important since I currently have none.  I would like to work using my acting skills, or my voice, but don't really have the resources yet to submit demos to the right people.  I want to pursue it regardless.  

I want to learn German.  I want to stop being lazy about it and buckle down.

I want to get certified to teach English as a second language.  I don't have the resources right now to take the courses, but it is a goal nonetheless.

There are more things I want to work on, but they are goals with less priority.  Mostly I want to become a more active, more well rounded person.  I want to stop being lazy about life.  The word life implies activity and participation and I want to go for it.   

Life is good, no matter what, damnit

I don't think I am an optimist...rather I think I am just really stubborn.  My family jokes that we are cursed...you know the sort of thing I am talking about.  Murphy's Law, but on a grand scale within my family.  Everything from the register at the grocery store never failing to break down when we are next in line, and have been there for the last 15 minutes...with our 4 items..., to bigger things like horrible health issues that go hand in hand with job losses and other gloom and doom that I won't bore...or perhaps titillate you with.

However, I am a firm believer that even in the face of almost constant struggle, life is full of joy.  Maybe not grand scale joys, but little things that can make us happy if we choose to let them.  I am at a crossroads currently, well, I am moving past the crossroad onto the path I chose.  My life is very fluid at the moment.  It is scary.  I am in a new city, among people I don't know, who speak a language I don't know either.  I left behind everyone and everything that I knew, because I was living miserably.  I chose to come here, and while it has been and still is sometimes scary and overwhelming in the hurdles I need to clamber over, I am still finding little things, daily to bolster my spirit. 

 I think this is something we HAVE to choose to do.  It isn't easy, ever to choose to look at things positively, to look for things to be joyful about, to choose to be grateful for life as it is.  There is the old adage that 'No one ever said life would be fair', and I think that is more than just fair as in justice, but fair as in sunny and sweet as well.  Life isn't just, or sunny, or swell all the time.  In fact most of the time, life is downright brutal.  People all have problems, sometimes some problems seem less than others, but that is like beauty being in the eye of the beholder, right? 

 I was walking beside the river this morning and was stopped by a few Jehovah's Witnesses, evangelizing in German.  When they realized I spoke English, they gave me their tract, written in English.  I took it and continued my walk.  On the front it said, "Does God care about us?  And if He does, then why do we suffer.  Will the suffering ever end."  Now, I am not going to get into a religious debate here and now, but I will take that statement about suffering and turn it over a time or two. 

 I think suffering is just part of life.  Without it, we don't grow, not in character, or spirit or in mind.  Without suffering, how do we know joy?  Wouldn't a life that held only joy, in effect devalue the meaning of joy?  How would we know it was joy without the presence of suffering and pain?  We wouldn't of course.  We can choose to accept suffering and make it into part of our joy and happiness.  We can choose to laugh even while we are depressed, we can choose to see beauty, even in the midst of darkness, we can choose to be grateful  for a dozen little things daily, even while life is assaulting us.  We still have worries and pain and suffering, but it doesn't have to consume us. 

 Life is good, life is grand, your life is YOURS, live it.  With passion, with joy, with a stubborn grateful zeal.  It is yours to live as you choose it.  Choose passion over pain and fight for it tooth and nail.