Thursday, February 23, 2012

Resolutions Update

We're almost all the way through February (which in and of itself is kind of hard to believe), but I thought it seemed like an appropriate time to give a quick New Year's resolutions update...because I know you're just dying to know...

1) I want to eat one fruit and one vegetable each day. 

As it turns out, this one started out being far harder than I anticipated. I should be more specific though. I wanted to each one fruit and one vegetable intentionally each day...which is really far different that just consuming one of each somewhere amongst all the other foods we eat. For instance, lettuce on a taco does not a vegetable make. I have however, made some judgement calls on this one. There are a few soups I've made that are almost all vegetables. Great! Vegetable done! I'm very happy to report that I have only missed one day with a vegetable and no days with fruits! And I actually woke up in the middle of the night (just past midnight) and remembered that I had not consumed a vegetable, and I debated for just a moment whether it was worth getting up and microwaving some frozen peas for. It was not. I'm pretty darn excited about my 98% completion rate so far, and I look forward to the rest of this very healthy habit forming resolution. 

2) I want to run 500 miles this year. 

Sadly, I must report that I am falling pretty far behind on this one. I want to run more than two or three days a week, but let's be honest - my life is cray-cray (as the kids say these days). I spend 60 hours a week at work while also trying to get 5-10 hours of homework in each week while also going to church, trying to be social, and oh yeah, sleeping. So running happens when it happens. I've currently completed a mere 49 miles, hitting 9.75% of my entire goal, when the calendar tells me I should be at nearly 15%. However, I am not fretting about this one just yet. Summer is coming! Delightful, glorious, long-day-filled summer! Although I didn't keep a tally from last summer, I was averaging over 4 miles a day...everyday. And then there's that little mountain climbing adventure, and while not technically running, if you don't think I'm going to count those miles, you're sick and very wrong! In four days I'll probably crank out something like 50 miles of strenuous rock-stair-stepping. Close enough to running I say! 

As far as my general desire for more discipline, I certainly think about it a lot more than I ever have, so that's a start, right? However, my bed largely remains unmade; the kitchen typically has at least one dish on the counter; that darn snooze button continues to plague me; and I still reach for a second dessert in the cafeteria a lot of days. But discipline must be thought of as more of a journey than a destination, I suppose.

How are your resolutions coming? Have you kept them? Dropped them? Don't let them beat you! Spring is coming! Be inspired and get after it!

Silent Wonder

Some days I wish I was a silent wonder.

There are some days that the things that come out of my mouth aren't really all that nice. In fact, I can have the tendency to be downright mean. And it's not that I'm completely mean spirited because I'm not (at least I don't think I am). But there are the days when I'm sitting around a table, listening to people talk about their co-workers or their "friends", about how obnoxious they are or how they talk too much, and instead of doing, well anything else, my first inclination is almost always to just jump right in.

Or there are the days when I say something just because I think it might get a laugh. And it doesn't. Or maybe it does but maybe only because it's the mean spirited, cruel-world stuff that everyone tends to laugh at whether they really think it's funny or not. 

And then there are the days when I've talked myself into a corner, and I get trapped there. "But didn't you say just the other day that...?" Oh how I hate hearing that phrase. It usually requires a reply like, "Well, sure but what I really meant was..." or "Are you sure that's what I said? You must have misunderstood". 

Those kinds of days, I wish I didn't speak at all. This is one of the many situations that leads me back to sweet, honest, analytical Paul. I chuckle in reading his thoughts on pretty much this very matter because I would imagine that my writings sound a lot like his... 

Romans7:15-24: For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! 

Can't you just here him talking to himself in his house at night the same you can hear me talking with myself? Crap, Paul. Why in the world did you keep talking to those guys and agreeing with them about that very not funny thing?! And why did I judge that woman shopping downtown today? I really shouldn't do that...why do I do that? I'm the very same way... Lindsey! Seriously! What made it okay to ask about that confidential situation in a very public setting today? And could you have been any more insensitive to that student? What is wrong with you? 

Ahh, but by grace, we are all works in progress. I am not perfect. And as much as I strive for perfection, sin is still at work in me. It's pretty hard to shake a sin nature (okay, so it's impossible while I'm alive, I know). So, I ask for forgiveness sincerely from God and people, I pray for strength to be more in tune with God's nature and far less in tune with sin's, and that's what I can do. And I will probably say something stupid tomorrow because I'm not actually a silent wonder. And for this world and this life, I'm just going to have to live with that.