1: Complaining.
I complain a lot, I'm told. I don't mind - I just see it as a way of venting. Complain, get it out, and move on. Maybe I need to do more of this complaining in my own head, instead of out loud. If I'm achy, then be achy - no reason to share my misery with the rest of the world. If I'm being eaten alive by mosquitoes, then so be it. It is what it is and complaining isn't going to get me any further.
2: Patience.
I'm told that I'm not patient at all. I think that this is a good and bad quality - the bad part I need to start phasing out. I believe that I get what I want, do what I want, and go where I want because I'm not patient - I am a mover and a shaker and I make things happen. The bad patient comes out usually in conversations - me CONSTANTLY talking OVER people, and interrupting, because I simply cannot wait my turn.
And now for number 3....one that I am making for myself. To make MYSELF happy.
3: NO.
That's right, NO. No, I don't want to accompany you to your grandmothers picnic. NO, I don't want to go for a bikeride through town - I want to sit here and read my book. NO, I don't want to go out for lunch - it's nothing personal but I'd rather eat alone today. NO thankyou, I don't really want to buy that $20 tshirt to support your baseball team, I give to certain charities and I can sleep at night knowing that I'm a giver. No. No. No. I often say YES to whatever anyone asks me to do, whether I already have plans or if I'd really just not like to participate at all. Why is saying "no" so difficult? Do I really think that by saying NO to a lunch date that I am ruining someone's day? No...so then what is it? This year I am going to start saying NO, doing what it is that I really want to do, spending every second of my time being satisfied with how I'm spending it. It may sound selfish, but it's a way of survival, and that's what I need right now.
“The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is very easy to say yes.” - Tony Blair
So on that note, NO, I'm not returning to New Jersey until my birthday. Because that's what I want to do.
This is going to be 2009's Mantra:
“I am Me. In all the world, there is no one else exactly like me. Everything that comes out of me is authentically mine, because I alone chose it -- I own everything about me: my body, my feelings, my mouth, my voice, all my actions, whether they be to others or myself. I own my fantasies, my dreams, my hopes, my fears. I own my triumphs and successes, all my failures and mistakes. Because I own all of me, I can become intimately acquainted with me. By so doing, I can love me and be friendly with all my parts. I know there are aspects about myself that puzzle me, and other aspects that I do not know -- but as long as I am friendly and loving to myself, I can courageously and hopefully look for solutions to the puzzles and ways to find out more about me. However I look and sound, whatever I say and do, and whatever I think and feel at a given moment in time is authentically me. If later some parts of how I looked, sounded, thought, and felt turn out to be unfitting, I can discard that which is unfitting, keep the rest, and invent something new for that which I discarded. I can see, hear, feel, think, say, and do. I have the tools to survive, to be close to others, to be productive, and to make sense and order out of the world of people and things outside of me. I own me, and therefore, I can engineer me. I am me, and I am Okay.”
Virginia Satir
Happy New Year!
“I am Me. In all the world, there is no one else exactly like me. Everything that comes out of me is authentically mine, because I alone chose it -- I own everything about me: my body, my feelings, my mouth, my voice, all my actions, whether they be to others or myself. I own my fantasies, my dreams, my hopes, my fears. I own my triumphs and successes, all my failures and mistakes. Because I own all of me, I can become intimately acquainted with me. By so doing, I can love me and be friendly with all my parts. I know there are aspects about myself that puzzle me, and other aspects that I do not know -- but as long as I am friendly and loving to myself, I can courageously and hopefully look for solutions to the puzzles and ways to find out more about me. However I look and sound, whatever I say and do, and whatever I think and feel at a given moment in time is authentically me. If later some parts of how I looked, sounded, thought, and felt turn out to be unfitting, I can discard that which is unfitting, keep the rest, and invent something new for that which I discarded. I can see, hear, feel, think, say, and do. I have the tools to survive, to be close to others, to be productive, and to make sense and order out of the world of people and things outside of me. I own me, and therefore, I can engineer me. I am me, and I am Okay.”
Virginia Satir 
Happy New Year!
I'm gonna steal your #3 as one of my top resolutions. Saying "NO" is indeed a hard hard thing. I love you! I want you happy ALWAYS so if it has to be until your birthday until I see your sunshiney face ..then so be it! mwah! viva la costa rica...( i dunno if that makes sense but you know what i mean )
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