First of the First month. First Firsts. Thoughts about how this year is going to unfold.
Walter Anderson says “I am responsibile. Although I may not be able to prevent the worst from happening, I am responsible for my attitude towards the inevitable misfortunes that darken life. Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have – life itself.”
I’m intent on being more ‘me’ although I’m not sure what that will be. This is exciting! 2011 will unfold and reveal and I will be an active participant. I will not wait for life to happen to me.
So many of us spend time searching for a piece of cheese that’s long been removed. We keep retracing our steps, going 
back to where we thought the cheese was last. Sometimes we sit for a VERY long time hoping that somehow our cheese would materialize – although it never does. Other times we think that the cheese is definitely at the next junction of the block we’re approaching. Yet when we get there, still no cheese.
We keep doing the same thing over and over, in sleep induced repetition hoping for a magic moment.
Walter said it: I am responsible. Ok so the cheese is gone. Now what?
Saw the movie ‘Love and Other Drugs’ yesterday. Jamie, the guy who’s life is being examined in the movie, was asked by his gf Maggie to list four great things about himself. He couldn’t. Sadly most of us can’t. We are not wired to think of ourselves. It’s been given a bad name like selfish, self centered, self absorbed…yet it’s none of these things. It’s really the only reason why we keep looking for a piece of cheese that’s outside of ourselves, thinking that we can’t manufacture our own cheese and that if somehow we lost the piece that we were living with all these years, that we could no longer function. That we’d reached the end of our life.
We’re at the end yes but just of our life as we know it.
Like Walter said, (sometimes we will lose the damn cheese), bad things happen.
Maya Angelou puts it like this:
“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter defeats so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.”
Why not make a list of some firsts you are willing to consider this year? Just remember ‘your cheese’ is within! <wink>
Get clear about marketing! 