Positively aware

I’ve been thinking about how much negative stuff I do in an average day, mindlessly. Stuff that doesn’t help me improve as a person, friend, partner, employee, citizen, stuff that actively detracts from that goal., in fact. I keep a mental list. It’s staggering. Embarrassingly wasteful of precious time. It comes to me depressingly easy if I let it; eating or drinking or reading or watching or coveting the wrong thing, and too much of it in many cases. Using empty and even hurtful words to people I love and respect when the opposite is appropriate and would be so appreciated. Burying feelings, building walls, denying truths. Failing to comfort or guide or inspire myself, let alone others. Wallowing, in the face of such grace and abundance? How dare I!

I am better than that, and I know it. We all are better than our lazy failings.

It’s mid-March, but I hereby resolve, as if a new calendar year is turning, to pursue the positive action, the uplifting outcome, the kind or soothing word. To stop and be mindful of the options each moment brings, and to do and say what I know to be true, to spurn the false result and the temporary road.

I don’t expect this to be easy; breaking habits and patterns and attitudes never is. And I don’t expect a flawless tomorrow or next day or next week. But I do expect to be better tomorrow and the next by keeping this vision in sight. By admitting that I am a flawed individual who owns the strength and the will to do better by myself and by those with whom I share space and life and dreams.

We get to our places and crossroads as we will. But speaking personally, I know I have rolled over and too often allowed inertia, especially lately, to decide too much of what follows, without reason or benefit.

Time to chart a new path. One day at a time? There is no other way.