Sunday, December 30, 2007

Are you living with intention?

I walked into a theater today griping about how much it costs to see a movie in this day and age and left wanting to turn around and pay it all over again. This movie, this experience, has left me...changed. It was a chick flick to it's ever lovin' core and it is my new favorite movie. The title isn't especially important. What matters is that it struck more than one chord with me. It made me want to live. I don't mean live in the get up every day and go through the motions sort of way, but in the way I've clamored on about throughout this entire blog if not the last decade. In it there is a girl who is so focused on what she doesn't have and what she hasn't done that she forgets the value of everything that is right in front of her until it's too late. She spends the rest of the movie reliving memories and being made aware of what great things she had. It takes a great loss in her life to really bring her to her senses and start living with intention.

Why are we so inclined, why am I so inclined, to come to realizations far beyond their expiration dates? Why do I give up on myself so quickly? Why have I never followed through and completed anything in my entire life? Why do I feel that everything is beyond my reach and my life, this life, is as good as it's going to get for me? What am I so afraid of?

It is minutes away from New Year's Eve. Resolutions will be made and broken before most clocks have finished striking midnight tomorrow. I have many things I want to accomplish this year, weight loss being only one of them. I think my biggest, and most important, commitments this year can be summed up best by Mary Anne Radmacher "Live with intention. Walk to the edge. Listen hard. Practice Wellness. Play with abandon. Laugh. Choose with no regret. Continue to learn. Appreciate your friends. Do what you love. Live as if this is all there is." That's what the year has in store for me. What will you be doing in 2008?