teh fortune cookie

Actions are what define us/our character.

I made a resolution to “go green” this past year.

I had forgotten all about these written statements until Haze had reminded me.

I went through them and realized that I had done just about everything.

After a successful year, I thought I should try for another.

2009 – To gradually work on:

• Bring my own grocery bag to the grocery store. I haven’t really grocery shopped since I graduated college and moved back home so it makes it a bit more challenging to practice. I will have to just stick the bags in my trunk as a reminder.
• Invest in non-toxic candles, soaps, shampoos and what our society calls, “beauty” products. Expensive, organic, all-natural, blah blah blah. Everything comes at a price, right? I need to do more research on these items.
• Recycle. I don’t know how much more I should recycle before I become a recycling-nazi. I pretty much only do this at home.

2009 – New goals (more important):

• Define concrete principles and practice them. Utilize role models, have discussions and critically reflect on my actions and how they affect others.
• *Exercise, relax and practice meditating.* I’ve had some pain near the lowest disc on my spine for awhile now — I’ve even slept in an “r” shape for a couple of months. Thought it was weird. Turns out the disc was twisted and disjointed causing a pinched nerve. I had my uncle re-align my spine — brought me to tears — it was quite painful during some moments, but it was needed. I then had some tension near my neck. He worked on it a bit and told me it’s from stress. Throughout the night, my brother and uncle would point out when I had my shoulders lifted. I became more cognizant of when I was doing it and realized that I am constantly contracting my shoulder and back muscles. I’m even doing it as I type now. Ugh. So when I tell myself, “relax,” I take a deep breath and exhale, allowing myself to release tension. And what I’ve realized is this “non-tensed” state is so foreign and unusual to me, that I go back to tensing! So now it is my goal to be more aware so that I can stop this damn habit. It’s a sad and happy realization/epiphany. If I become an awareness-nazi on myself, I’m pretty sure I can break the habit and it’ll become natural to just…relax. God, it’s so weird not knowing what that’s like for the majority of the day. I never even thought I was stressed! Ultimately, I need to move more — I need to exercise. But I also need to be careful with Yoga, since I’ve messed up one of my legs by overstretching. Exercising, relaxing and meditating is my main focus this next year and will be the basis for why I may choose to do one thing over another. This is priority!
• Invest money. I need to do more research to figure out where to put my money (stocks, bonds, mutual funds, etc.). I’m not very savvy on this because I hate dealing with money and numbers and that which I don’t understand in relation to them, so I’m going to go out of my comfort zone and figure out what I need to do with it for whatever sake I need to do it for… which I also need to figure out. If I’m going to buy less “stuff,” then I don’t need very much money to live, so why bother saving it — just “in case…?” There’s a huge disconnect between why I should invest my money (besides it being the smart thing to do) and what I’m going to use it for in the future. This needs to be figured out a.s.a.p. because I don’t want money to define my actions or who I am — but I also need to be smart with it, right?
• Have a better sense of my career. Whatever that means. Base this on what I want and like to do…short-term, long-term and in the-bigger-picture sense. This needs a lot of working on.
• Travel where I say I want to travel. I think I kind of already do this…so then I just want to continue doing this. But this is my advanced reminder for when I get caught up with other things in life (i.e. work), I will have something to refer back to. This year I have traveled the most I have ever: NY, Mexico, Oregon, Washington, Canada, all over China, Thailand, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Places I’m pretty sure I’m going to travel to next year: Chicago (February), Japan (end of May, beginning of June) and Boston (perhaps summertime). I also want to get in at least one more place — either Peru or some place in Europe (gotta factor in how much vacation time I get).
• Focus on my relationships with others. Spend more quality time with friends and family and utilize this as a principle for actions. Does this mean to force myself to socialize when I don’t want to? I don’t really know yet. I don’t know where I would draw the line… While they may get the “poopy LC” — does that really give them quality? I don’t think so… But with family, I definitely need to work on making my relationships stronger and more effective rather than efficient, a misnomer. “ Be efficient with things, be effective with people.” – Stephen Covey
• Begin writing my mission statement. Keeping the end in mind.

These are significantly different than this past year’s, focusing more so on concrete goals to help modify and improve my overall lifestyle. As usual, this list is non-exhaustive and I may be apt to add more later…if I don’t forget about the existence of this post!