Committing to Change

“If the only motivation you need to commit to change is a date on the calendar, then you are selling yourself short 364 times every year or not truly committed to change. Either case is a tragedy. Change is a prerequisite to improvement. Seek out opportunities to change every day. Are you as who you want to be? Is everything perfect in your life? You must understand that You are the one preventing You from getting closer to who You want to be.” I found the quote above written in a journal of mine. I wrote it just before the end of 2011. Everyone was talking about their New Year’s resolutions. The whole idea nauseates me. You can’t wait till tomorrow to change. As Little Orphan Annie is famous for saying, “Tomorrow is just a day away!” The problem is that it will ALWAYS be a day away. It will never be tomorrow. The only way to get around the “I’ll do it tomorrow” syndrome is for you to be honest with yourself. Are you really going to work out twice a day a never have candy again? If you are honest about wanting to change, then do it today.

…friendly in an ill-tempered way.

I just started life of pi by Yann Martel. This won’t be a review, because I am not nearly finished. I ran across a sentence that made me want to say something about it. Early in the book, there is a sentence that reads: “The porters…were limping old men, friendly in an ill-tempered way.” How cool is that? The juxtaposition of friendly and ill-tempered to describe the same person is elegantly spot-on. I know exactly the person being described. I can see myself trying to ruffle their feathers just to see what kind of reaction I would get. It makes me feel like I am there.