take two

i don't have anything in particular to write about right now.  but i need to post something because i've been making it a point to do an entry a week.  and i can't afford another area of dismal performance because i have already been feeling like an epic failure with my NY list.

so sorry so soon, right?   i also can't believe it, as i watch myself violating my list day after day after day since the time i wrote it, and it's not even February yet.  the resolve is not supposed to wane this early.  and to think i felt my list was such a baby. you know, sleep early, be on time, wear make up...  chicken, right? apparently not for me.  

how about you?  hope you're faring much better than i am.  (or lucky you if you didn't make a list)

i should have probably just stuck with the one-word theme for the year like i used to. sounds simpler.  it's like setting a guiding principle of what you yearn to master for that year. it's just a theme, so it's hard to tell if you're keeping/doing it or not (guilt evasion scheme). but your gut will tell you. guts don't B.S.

so mine last year was authenticity: to know my self better, enjoy that self, be really that self.   but as you can see, i have managed to come up with a loong list of things i need to change about myself last Jan 1.  so i guess i failed in my quest for authenticity too haha*  (just let me wallow in this sense of failure.  i can take this)

but i still want to have a theme for this year,  or make it two coz i'm retaining authenticity.  i was thinking of 'Depth'.  that's the word that popped in head while i listened to my pastor's sunday talk.  i was thinking: i love this church, i love how it re-focuses me to the essential matters of life, i love how it makes me want to become a person with a sense of mission and meaningful burdens.

then i realized i like it when i connect to my deeper self, when i'm not too engrossed with the mundane.  i want to have that not only when i'm in church. i want that to be a mainstay feeling.

but then Monday beckoned.

you know Mondays. they're not cuddly like Sundays.  and unfortunately, i need to contend with, like, 4 mondays a week (i'm counting out friday).

you also probably know how it's a challenge to stay in touch with the deeper self in an 8 to 5 work setting. so much stimuli.  so by barely mid-monday, i slide back to mundane.  at the rate i'm going, how could i possibly do deep 7 days a week?

maybe i don't really want deep (cop out!)

maybe i just want to be kinder.  to be consistently and effortlessly kind.  because i hate it too when i b*tch. it's so lowly.

kindness. it's warm and fuzzy and has more practical use in the world than depth.  you can even kill with it.

authenticity + kindness. maybe this is what my loong chicken list really is all about.

(Photo not mine. stumbled upon it 2 years ago while surfing aimlessly)

* at this point, i can imagine my mother saying: but you're still being yourself. you're just trying to become your best self.