Reluctant Resolutions

I really try to avoid clichés.  I try not to listen to music simply because everyone else is.  I try not to watch a movie simply because everyone else has.  I don’t wear what everyone else is wearing, etc.  Now, that doesn’t mean I’ll avoid doing or seeing or wearing something just because others are doing or seeing or wearing something.  If I happen to like it, I’ll partake but only if I’m into it.  If others happen to be as well, that’s cool.  If not, I don’t care.  I try to do my own thing.  That’s why I was reluctant to do resolutions this year.  Everyone is doing them and everyone’s are the same:  quitting smoking, losing weight, yadda yadda yadda.  Well, I decided I need to do some resolutions even though everyone else is as well.  But hopefully mine won’t be as trite as weight loss and addiction demolition.

I think I can sum up my main resolutions into two M categories: Mind and Money.

I have got to freaking loosen up.  Seriously, I am a basket case.  People just don’t know what goes through my mind on a daily basis and I’ll be darned if anyone finds out.  I stress out too much about too many things, most things that are completely out of my control.  I need to start meditating and doing yoga for serious instead of just stretching here or there.  I need to make it a part of my lifestyle.  Same with the meditation.  I should take at least ten or so minutes to just sit in my room with no internet or television or any kind of noise and just sit there and think or pray or do nothing.  Maybe I should just listen.  My mind is constantly being not so much stimulated but prodded by everything around me and if it’s not an outside source it’s inner conflict causes my cranium to start cracking. 

I just feel I need to start letting go of so many insignificant troubles that trigger a mini meltdown for me.  I really need to get over how I look.  I am who I am and I have to start accepting it.  I am just not a total stud and I don’t know if I ever will be.  Maybe I will and maybe I won’t but that’s in the future and once again one of those uncontrollable things that I can’t worry about right now.  That’s far down the line and I have things to take care of in the present.  I need to stop worrying about what other people think of me.  I am who I am and I have to start accepting that other people just have to accept it.  I might not fit other people’s expectations but I can’t please everyone.  I can’t even please myself.  I might not be the best looking or be the most tactful but I think I’m pretty presentable and behave at my best in most situations and that’s a lot more than other people can say.

I just can’t worry about my weight anymore.  I’ll sit in bed and bemoan my belly while eating a bag of Cheetos.  What kind of sense does that make?  It’s ridiculous.  If I have a problem with my body, I need to get up off my fat butt and do something about it.  It is that freaking simple.  There’s no mystery cure to being fat, no crazy method.  It’s getting off your butt and taking all that energy used to complain and instead using it to burn more calories than are consumed.  Not a big deal and not such a hard process.  It might be long, but not very hard.  And there’s where the mental aspect comes back into play.  And it’s also where I feel I’ve gotten it wrong all of those years when I resolved to lose weight.  I kept focusing on the physical instead of the mental.  Losing weight is easy physically.  It’s the mental strength that’s needed to be successful.  A mental strength that I have never had nor tried to gain.  Well, this year it has to change.

I feel like I have to accept myself for who I am before I can make a change for the better because once you accept who you are, you’ve laid down a launching pad in which you can catapult yourself into a better you.  Bulidings can’t be constructed without a foundation.  Races can’t be won without a starting line.  And so how is it I feel I can change myself when I have nowhere to start?  How can I progress mentally when I don’t know where my brain is?  How can I progress physically when my body is so out of control? 

And the other M is for money, which I don’t have.  My spending is absolutely ridiculous and I’ve always kind of known in the back of my head that I was spending way too much but only recently has it really hit me how wasteful and exorbitant I’ve been.  I think this whole crappy economy and imminent “omg I have to get a real adult job in a few months” thing has really made me aware of the hole in my pocket.  I seriously buy crap, stuff I don’t need and sometimes stuff I plain just don’t want only because buying stuff makes me feel better.  And it ties back in with the whole mental aspect.  I get stressed so I’ll eat or buy something and that stress is temporarily subdued.  But it always comes back until I eat more or spend more or spend more to eat more.  My mind is a mush of money and marshmallows and it has to stop.

If I can just get myself straightened out mentally then I really feel like the weight loss and frugality will fall into place.  Naturally, I don’t assume that it’ll be easy but I definitely feel like it will help.  I also don’t expect it will happen overnight, in a few weeks, months, or any time soon but I do hope that every day I make a little bit of progress.  I am incredibly impatient and I want everything now.  I want food now, to lose weight now, to buy this now and I think my lifestyle has largely catered to my impatience.  I can buy anything online in a matter of minutes and my fridge is always stocked with food so I can eat anything in the time it takes to walk to the kitchen and I just need to slow down.  It’s funny I say that because anyone who would look at my life would think that I have the slowest most boring life ever and maybe I do on the outside but inside of myself, things are going at a lightning pace.  My days are awash with worries and all that concentration on stupid things really makes the time fly by and before I know it, I’ve inhaled an entire carton of ice cream and I end up stressing about that ice cream until I feel miserable enough to eat something else to drown out the sadness or until I fall asleep and start it again the next day. 

I am a bit of a control freak and when I feel things are out of my control, I stress about it.  I stress about gas prices and the economy and the war and it really puts me down and I worry about the future and how everything just seems to be getting worse and the future is something that I have no use worrying over because the economy could become amazing and gas go down and the war might end and I would have worried so much for no reason.  I’d hate to kno

w I wasted all of those years freaking out over nothing.  But it’s what I do.  Perhaps it’s my way of preparing myself for the worst so when the worst happens, I won’t be surprised, or if things aren’t as bad as expected, I can feel a sense of relief instead of disappointment for being too optimistic.  I’m going to be graduating in May and I might not be able to find a job.  But then again maybe I’ll get a great job.  This is life and it is messy and unpredictable and I try to spend so much time sorting out that mess and trying to predict what I think is going to happen and it’s ridiculous to do that because no one can do that.  So, I should just let it go because it is out of my ashen hands.  Only God knows what’s going to happen and the only way I can take comfort in the future is have faith that God is going to take care of me.

I’d also like to read and write a lot more in the new year.

So, there are my resolutions.  I suppose they aren’t so bad after all.  I guess I just don’t like the idea that people wait until the end of the year to try to get things right.  Resolutions should be a year round exercise in the betterment of yourself.  Heck, you should make a resolution to better yourself daily.  Realize when you screw up and make a vow to yourself to fix it right then.  And maybe that should be another resolution of mine.  So, as clichéd as it may be to start off my new year with resolutions, at least they weren’t the ones most people choose.  Sure, weight is in there but it’s not of utter importance.  I want to work on my mind first, get that in shape, get myself in a better position so that when I decide to really focus on my physical self, it won’t be such a knock down drag out fight between my physical self and my mental self.  Hopefully instead of working against each other, they will work in harmony so that I can finally find some peace.

I want to set the tone for 2009.  I want to state for the record that this is a positive entry and hopefully it will send out positive vibes for future entries and positive vibes for me.  I’m tired of complaining and criticizing.  I’d love to have something to praise and something happy to share with everyone instead of the same emo garbage I dole out in droves.  Yes, things will be okay if I let go of all the old negative energy and adopt a newer, more positive and laid back attitude.  Eh, good luck with that one, Bran.

Happy New Year Everyone!

I hope it’s your best one ever.