I have just turned 30 and while I am more freaked out when I think of my parents' ages, I will occasionally have to remind myself that it is preferable to the alternative. Consequently, I am beginning to realize that instead of viewing this milestone as a finish line ("I want to accomplish blank before I'm 30...") I should be viewing this as a starting point. I am no longer in my twenties -- hallelujah! -- and will do my best to live up to the societal expectations of responsibility that come with being a thirty-something. I have my work cut out for me, though so I have three primary resolutions for 2012:
- Make better choices.
- Work and fight for what I really want.
- Minimize and simplify my life and possessions.
Making better choices encompasses all aspects of my life -- I can hear one friend in particular sighing and rolling her eyes as she reads this -- but particularly to my choices regarding food and exercise. I have a very strong sweet tooth and several lazy bones. On top of this, in the past year or so I have discovered that I have a genuine love (and an apparent talent) for cooking and baking. This may seem boastful, at least it does to me, but I have been told so on several occasions by many people so I feel okay with that pronouncement. And last year I discovered that I didn't hate exercise as much as I thought I did. What I didn't like about gym class in school was the constant competition. I understand that some people thrive on it and there's no way around it in parts of life, but I've never excelled at anything really physical so it didn't work that way for me. What I thrive on is positive reinforcement: feeling better, breathing better, fitting my clothes better, and being asked by friends who I haven't seen in a while, "Where'd the rest of you go?" Since I first weighed myself last spring I have lost 14 pounds, and probably closer to 20 pounds from this time last year. I still have about another 40 pounds until I'm at a healthy weight/BMI and I would love to speed up the process a bit.
Created by MyFitnessPal - Free Weight Loss Tools
Working and fighting for what I really want is a reminder for the work that I will have to put in to reach my weight loss and fitness goal, as well as my many other goals. I will need to work hard to get myself back into and through school to complete a degree, and to get myself out of debt and start saving money. As for fighting, I'm fighting not only my lazy tendencies and lack of attention span, but also fighting back when someone tries to push me around or take advantage of me. Trying to be accommodating and flexible has not particularly worked in my favor for anything in the past. I have been completely taken advantage of by my employers, coworkers, and friends and taken for granted by friends and family. While I will often do whatever I can to help anyone I care about, it becomes just another in a pile of stresses and worries when I feel coerced and pressured to do so.
Finally, minimizing and simplifying my life and possessions is quite simply because I am overwhelmed by all the things I have accumulated in my life. I am by nature a bit of a pack rat, as is the rest of my family, and overly sentimental so that's something I must overcome to do the necessary purging. But purge I must.
Now, I realize that if you've stuck with me through all of this, it will likely seem like I'm rambling. However, the gist of what I'm trying to do with this blog is to remind myself what I'm doing and why and to reach out to anyone else who is doing or has done similar life overhauls, both to help those who seek it and to find tips or tricks that may help me. I do have the attention span of a gnat, however, so I may post about any of the above, or a delicious dessert I'm creating, a movie or song that I've discovered, or just any random thing that I want to share...It's my blog, I do what I want. And being a very visual person, I will attempt to incorporate pictures with every post, either my own or linked/credited to the original source. Hopefully this will make my posts more entertaining to compose and to read.
Well, now that you've read (or skimmed) my spiel, I invite you to continue on to explore the rest of Liberty Corner.
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