Monday, November 8, 2010

Self Improvements

Well, well! I've neglected this little blog somewhat bad. Shame on me, I know. And not only that, but I recently (umm, yesterday) started a cooking blog over at Wordpress. I know, I know: can I possibly keep up with two blogs when I gave up on one after a handfull of posts? You know what? I think I can!

I recently finished grad school, and I'm currently unemployed and unemployable, due to the fact that I'm a German citizen in the US and currently working on getting my Green Card. I should have it in a few months, hopefully, but the process is complicated and drawn-out. In the meantime, I'm stuck not being able to work. Well, not for money, anyway.

I've decided to make the best of it. Hell, when am I ever gonna have this much free time on my hands? Now that I think of it, it might be the last time in my life, at least until retirement. I realized that I could use all this time to consciously improve the way I live, to grow, to learn new things, form new habits, change things that I can change, and come out a happier person for it.

I'm certainly not unhappy with who I am, but I like a challenge, and I do believe there is room for improvement in the way I live my life. Here are the four areas I'd like to focus on:

1. Writing. I love to write, but I don't do it enough.
2. Eating/cooking. I love to cook, and I'm usually health conscious, but I can also be lazy and careless with what I eat.
3. Exercising. I don't do it. I should. Because when I do, it makes me feel good.
4. Enhancing my living space. This covers everything from developing better cleaning/tidying habits to regular and diligent plant care, to investing in things that will make our house more beautiful and livable. It's nice now, but it's also chaotic and not very restful.

Since I'm not working (at least not in the 9-5 sense), I should have the time to devote a little bit of time to each of those four areas every single day. It shouldn't be hard: I cook anyway, so that's not much extra time - I just need to plan better. Writing can take 5 minutes if I want, or two hours. No stress. Same with my living space: whether it's 10 minutes of tidying an area or spending an afternoon picking out some new wall art, I'll always be happier afterwards. Exercising will be the tough one, but on days where I can't do any actual work at the gym or on the Wii Fit, I'll accept a half hour walk. We have some great trails near the house, and I should be taking advantage of them more often. I also recently got one of those big exercise balls, and I better start using it.

Anyway, that's the plan. It's written down, publicly on the internet, so I better stick with it!

No comments:

Post a Comment