Thursday, January 21, 2010

the battle of the (in)dulge

I love January. It always feels so fresh after the crammed excitement of November and December. I love how it inspires people to try and aim for better things in the year to come, namely in area of food and exercise. I remember several years ago when I worked at Starbucks the company went all out with a January campaign for fat-free, sugar-free, vanilla lattes. It made me laugh to think of the slightly hypocritic promotion department that had been cramming peperment mochas and white chocolate mochas and every other kind of indulgence down consumers throats for the previous months, now encouraging their loving public to drink responsibly.

January is a month to fight the indulgence from the year before. Did I waste too much time last year? Did I forget to exercise during the past 365 days? Did I get lazy in my relationships? Did I let the closets and junk drawers go to pot?

Any of that can change at any point, but there is just something about January. It's a clean slate, mentally if not literally, and it's as good a time as any to start. I don't think these things necessarily need to be resolutions either. Sometimes the word "resolution" is more of a set up for failure than anything else. But it is a time to aim for better, to set goals, to be more focused and less indulgent of our weaknesses.

There are couple areas I'm trying to hammer away at right now. The biggest item on my list is time. I realized how much time I was wasting with things that over time add up to a big fat zero. The internet, my black hole of time consumption, is probably the biggest culprit for wasted time, but there are other areas too. So instead of filling up my days with a bunch of distractions, I want to do more things that I look back on and think, "That was a great way to have invested time."

I was also inspired yesterday to prioritize organization! I'm not generally messy, but I'm big time guilty of letting my spaces (closets, drawers, storage bins) accumulate. More and more and more eventually adds up to junky, and there is just no getting around it: Organization require de-junking.

I have plowed through the girls closets, my closet, the play room, and most recently, my pantry! I'll throw pride to the wind and tell you that I found more than one item in the pantry with an expiration date of 2007 or before. And when I say more than one, I mean enough to fill up a 13 gallon trash bag. I knew it wasn't often that I reached to the back row of my pantry shelves, but goodness gracious! Some of that stuff must have been back there for upwards of four years. Oh my. Hopefully another half-decade will not pass before the next total pantry cleansing.

So there it is. Gut level honestly laid out for you all to see. I was not one to clean out pantries or closets, but that is true no longer! I'm trying to take an honest look, see where I've indulged in the past, and get to work to make it different.

5 comments:

Radar's Mom said...

Here, here!!! Now, if I can just add one slightly critical comment... please don't take it wrong... it is only meant to point out one GIANT gaping hole in the "Angie Luce 2010 blogosphere"... and that would be that you got a new camera for Christmas and haven't posted a single picture of your gorgeous girls this year!!!!! Please... indulge us!!!

;) Hugs

Laurie in Ca. said...

Oh, I agree with Radar's Mom here:) I also agree with getting organized. My pantry is screaming for a look way back in the dark places. Only 2007? I'll bet I can top that:) Love you Angie.

Love and Hugs, Laurie

Brad said...

Great post! Lately, I've been thinking about something I read, "in our early years, our regrets are focused on things we wished we would NOT have done; in our latter years of life, our regrets are made up of things we wished we would HAVE done". That's a powerful statement. It causes us to focus on maximizing our time to do the things that matter most for both this life, and for eternity and God's kingdom. I guess if we were to try to break down life's most precious things, that would be our relationship with Christ, and our relationships with our family, friends, and others. By spending the most amount of time on these relationships, I suspect that there will be little we will regret in our latter years. Christ will transform us as we prioritize an intimate relationship with Him, and the quality of our other relationships will only get better as a result.

Anonymous said...

ok, cool... i just added up many bran-new emo backgrounds for my blog
http://www.emo-backgrounds.info

kanishk said...

love this post

Work from home India