In with the New

WE WILL SEE


I have set my goals for the first half of the year, and going to stick to them. This first month is going to be huge, as it sets the tone for the rest of the year. Good starts lead to good finishes.

Won't be doing my 'catch up' as much as before, going back and reading what is going on with the rest of you like I have been. Am I that anal retentive? Occasionally, and that isn't cool. BUT what I will ask, and prolly leave in a few comments, is that if there is something that you want me to take a particular interest in, send it to my email, markonit@aol.com. This is an in-box, where secrets go to die, and whatever is said, will be between me and you.

Why am I making this request? Because we all have friends that we like to hear from, especially when facing certain kinds of question. But if it is on a day that this particular person doesn't read, what are you going to do?

Presumptuous? Maybe. But since I do consider y'all my friend, I wouldn't want to think that someone would like to hear from me, on a day that I am 'not around'.

THE COLOR AND THE SHAPE

A way cool CD by the Foo Fighters. I am 41 years old, and have been told enough by people at how I 'sound'. Which is cool, because in my head, I talk and sound like how I want to. But since I am sharing this, and I don't want to annoy or bother anyone unintentionally, I figure that I would make a 'disclaimer statement'.

Because life is hard enough, I try not to give it any extra help, by letting a lot of negative crap enter my mind.

This very second, I am looking at 'Principles', from the book 'How To Stop Worrying And Start Living'. I am going to read it, and apply it in my day to day life. For real.

Inevitably some of that 'positive crap' is going to spill out into my pages ... and I am like 'so'. Growing up in a big city (losing over 3/4 of a million folks in the last 30 years or so takes the 'metropolis' label away from Detroit), I don't have to apologize for thinking that better things lie ahead. It has to, because that is all that there is left. I have taken as much ownership as I can possibly think of for my life, so now I can expect that the good things I desire are once more available for me, and I will look for them in my life.

THE MINUTE WE BEGIN CARRYING OUT OUR DECISION ...

One of the biggest reasons I hadn't ever made 'official' resolutions, is that there is a collective psychic cloud around the idea of a 'resolution'. Because they are a 'resolution', they almost are doomed to fail. Life choices, aren't something that you make after choosing crap behavouir and in the emotional chaos of the supposed season.

IMO, this is when people tell themselves the biggest lies, make the biggest emotional mockery of themselves. I tie it into false sense of pride. Whatever someone's issue or goal is, I think that they have a problem with humbling themselves to it, and then challenging it and themselves to overcome it.

Sports is about achievement, about facing that thing you cannot do and doing it, as Elanor Roosevelt alluded to. But there comes a LOT of work. 'Want' should be paired with 'earn', so that instead of saying that 'I want to have that', it should be 'I want to earn that'.

In realistically setting a goal, you will have doubts, and you will have questions. What if the choice you made was mistaken, and you are going in 'the fog of effort' ('fog of war' while an excellent documentary, would have been a little over the top for use in a diary!) blind ...

... that is why I mentioned, 'if you want my particular opinion, ask ME'. Because you have to have people who you can rely on, for good, strong advice. So you choose folks who you can depend upon ... and as I have come to think I can rely on you who are readers, I want those to know that they can rely on me.

Once you have 'crossed your T's and dotted the I's', then off you go, into what Clauswitz calls '... the shadows of uncertainty.'

Now, whatever 'smugness' or 'Stuart Smalley' stuff you read here, is for real in my life. Being this old, I need to use that 'I could give a sh*t' attitude for people who want to tell me that I can't expect of be the way that I have chosen to be.

Besides, I just know better.

MISSION CREEP

The wikipedia entry on the subject is way cool, and gives a great example. For me, I got it when reading about Vietnam as a child.

For me, the line shoot for the stars, land on the moon' also fits. But I have enough 'pollyanna' in me. My Mom actually talked 'rough' with me, and that was cool. Because when you are actually on the front, just as there are no atheist in foxholes, there also aren't any innocents either. So 'mission creep' it is.

It is going to happen. And that is why you have to fight not only to stay focused, but to stay positive as well. 'Mission Creep' is what happens, IMO, when you get to where you want to, and you didn't actually believe you would get there. Those 'surprises' are mostly unwelcomed, and tend to complicate things.

You want to lose weight, but there is a big bake sale at the church or with the Jaycees. Or you have promised not to talk to the guy who drug your heart thru the mud, and something reminds you of him or you run into one of his friends at the Multiplex. You said that you are going to be on time for school, and you are still hanging out late on Sunday night ... after all, you have spent the last week, month, two months avoiding and fighting the urge to do something on your 'bad list'.

Not only that, you are feeling good, and you have done what you were suppose to for the entire time ... what could one little slide back do ..?

Well, I will tell you that, when next I get out here!