2001-10-28 - 11:07 a.m.

just a thought

So yeah life has marched onward as inexorably as people shuffling through the buffet at Country Kitchen. Things have happened in this, my life, since last I updated. Parties were attended, babies puked on me, fat people got naked in a hot tub while I drank rum. I've been in the gym, I've been in the shower, I've spent a lot of time in my car, I've spent more time in front of the TV, I've whiled away extra hours luxuriating between my flannel sheets.

All of this is good. All of this is normal. All of this is Life As It Should Be, or at least Life As I've Come To Know It.

But today, I am interested in something else besides the steady march towards oblivion. Today I am interested in a little shaking up, a little Richter Scale action in this, my life.

I'm reading a book loaned to me by BigSis. It's about deciding what you want to do when you grow up. More accurately, it's about figuring out what would be your ideal job, finding a career about which you can be passionate.

Then getting it.

I've just finished a chapter on comfort and commitments. It contended that what is comfortable, and the desire for same, can keep you from keeping commitments. Even those made to yourself, or especially those made to yourself.

But what's really cooking my noodle right now is a common idea that I've now seen in three different books in the past month. It's not like it's a new idea to me. I've lived with this little bugger gestating in the back of my brain for many years now. Every so often I dust it off and try to incorporate it into life. Usually I fail.

Anyway, the idea is this: The first step to effecting change in your life is to change the way you think. Put another way, your thoughts shape your reality.

I'm not going to try to explain it any further than that. I'm going to instead, as the yogi say, sit with it for a while.