One Day Can Make A Lot Of Difference

On Saturday, October 2nd, 2004, I forced myself to go for a walk. I had to force myself out of my house since I had just wasted the last 16 hours of my weekend playing a computer game that was, to say the least, addictive. On my walk, I took an account of the areas of my life that were suffering because of my addictions. These areas were, my health, my job, my finances and the general state of my home & belongings.

I have always been able to place my finger on what I needed to do to improve or correct my lifes circumstance, but thinking of them and then not doing them is my problem. I am glad that I have the self insight to be able to diagnose my failings and see the proper courses of action required to correct my situation. And I have, for shorts bursts of time, been able to effect positive change in my behavior and my actions that have lead to equaly shorts bursts of success. What I seriously lack and long for is long term, sustainable positive change. The type of change that will build character and make a significant difference in my life.

For the most part, my life has been one of immense luck, undeserved privilege, bursts of joy and profound disappointment. Most all of this has been entirely caused by my poor sense of self, wrong choices and warped sense of reality. On the one hand, I have a tremendous amount of personal inner strength and understanding of what needs to be done, but for the most part I am, for lack of a better description, a 44 year old lazy narcissistic sloth. I am heading towards early death, bankruptcy and misery if I continue on my destructive path. It is not a matter of what I am doing but more a matter of what I am failing to do.

After walking today, and reviewing my current state, I have come to decide that I must make a change for the better - starting today.

Starting today, I will take each day at a time for one week. I will strive to make changes of improvement in the following areas which will help improve my health, my present circumstances and my ability to provide for myself and my loved ones.

1. Walk or excercise each day
2. Keep our house and belongings in good care
3. Create and follow a consistent process at work

I originally began this exercise by writing a letter to myself that would be opened one week from today so that I could see if it was possible to make these changes stick even for just one week. I still may do that. However, the idea of writing a daily web log appeals to me and I hope that this log will provide me with the type of venue that appeals also to the writer in me.

I suppose the place to start would be a daily entry into this log that I will review at the end of the week. Being honest to myself in my writings is key, as well as making myself refer to the log daily and update my progress, or regress, whichever the case may be.

My goals for tonight are:

1) Clean the kitchen, hallway, living room and dining room.

2) Fold the laundry.

3) Complete the dogs bed

4) Prepare myself a healthy dinner

These are the things which my wife will appreciate, will give me a feeling of accomplishment and will help complete one of my goals, which is to care better for my house, belongings and loved ones.