Renew, Re-visit, Re-dedicate

Every so often, I find that I need to renew dedication to the things that are important to me. There is a time of recognition that I have drifted from a principle that I hold dear, or an activity that I know I need, or from a person that I don't want to lose. It's an unsettling moment, one that I usually try to deny or ignore or delay until a more convenient time, but once it's there it doesn't go away.

I stop eating as well as I should. I don't write as much as I should (perhaps the most common one). I don't treat my wife as well as I wish to, or don't spend enough time with her, or work hard enough to make our marriage great. Not logging enough miles on the bike, weighing in a bit too heavily on the bathroom scale, smoking and drinking too much, watching the idiot box instead of reading. The lists go on. It comes down to sliding from active, productive, fit and happy to comfortable, lazy, blissfully ignorant and sedentary. Of course, everything is relative, but when it gets to the point that I am aware and uncomfortable in my awareness, I know it's time to change.

I have a very good idea of who and what I want to be, and it's when I slip off the road to this state and begin to move away from achieving it that this need for renewal comes about.

For a long time this seemed a bad thing, this need to consciously re-commit to the things that I feel are important, that keep me happy and healthy and generally make life good. Why should I have to? Why aren't they as built-in to my life and days as breathing and sleeping and drinking water?

But now I see that the renewal is almost as important as that which is being renewed, if not more-so. Principle without action is hollow. It's politics. And as humans we are fallible. We slouch toward paths of least resistance as a matter of course, and when these paths are not the proper ones--when they are constructed for convenience and not betterment, ease rather than meaning--they are not only inappropriate but they are threatening to our very souls.

To renew is to acknowledge the things that make us who we are. It's a periodic reassessment to make sure that we, changing beings that we are, stick to the path that we want to be on. I imagine even Ghandi had to reevaluate himself and his life once in a while. And in the renewal I often find a renewed enthusiasm and love for whatever it is I'm focusing on. That rediscovery makes it all worthwhile.

So.

I will pay more and better attention to my wife, whom I love very much.

I will eat better, healthier, more frequent, smaller meals.

I will ramp up my ride/run schedule so that I have 1 and not 3-4 days off in a week. And on that day off, I will walk the dogs.

I will become angry less. To do this I will respond thoughtfully, not at the jerk of a knee; I will consider what is important to others as much as to myself; I will try to truly see things as others see them; I will constantly acknowledge that nothing is absolute and everything is relative; I will stick closer to the idea of learning everything, not knowing everything, and that a wise person is never afraid to not know something--it is from the not knowing that we learn and gain wisdom.

I will pay far greater and closer attention to books and music and far less to television.

I will cut the smoking and drinking down to a more reasonable level. This is not too far off, but I could definitely improve in the smoking arena.

And this is only the beginning.