January 2 - What Are The Questions

Before we can really make changes, we must learn to ask good questions. If we want to do (or undo) something, the question should be "why". And then why again. And again, until we find the deep and true reason that has been buried in our hearts.

The next question is how. The self-help gurus say to write lists of goals and steps and timetables. For some of us, this doesn't work. We use the steps and deadlines as weapons to beat ourselves up - or to pretend that we're in control.

Well, we're not in control. The Universe is - and that is precisely why we get sidetracked so easily. So we're back to one-day-at-a-time. Eat healthy just for today. Exercise just for today. Do whatever chore just for today. Or don't smoke just for today. Don't tell a lie just for today.

Yesterday is over. We cannot change it. Tomorrow isn't here. We can't do anything about that either. So, just for today I will...

January 1 - What's Next?

It is a time for new beginnings. They say that each new day is the first day of the rest of your life. It's true. But at times it seems as if the endless starting over can almost become self-defeating. So we solve that by symbolically starting over only once each year. We make resolutions - most of which are given up by the end of the first week.

Then we choose Monday as a starting over day. But Mondays are fraught with their own perils. So by Wednesday we are defeated again.

What's next?

We all know the things we'd like to change in our lives. We make lists and post them on the refrigerator or on the bathroom mirror in an attempt to remind ourselves to do or be or don't or whatever. How long until we look right at these lists and don't even see them anymore?

I think for this next space of time I will take a page from the twelve-stop programs and start living my life one day at a time. I will decide when I wake how I will be and do and don't and whatever. Just for today.

And tomorrow I will decide again.

It's Been A While

My health issues caught up with me again, along with a bout with depression. So I took a sabbatical from the news and blogs and all that.

I've decided to retrain my focus a bit here and hope to be posting more regularly. Hope you all had happy holidays and that your New Year will be a good one!