another year coming to a close....wonder how many blogs will be writing those exact words in the next week or so? a time for reflection on the triumphs and tragedies of the year. yes, we are creatures of routines, marking off the days, the months, the seasons, it's hardwired into us.

but we always have to push off our self improvements until some future date don't we? not going to start that workout regime today and get a jumpstart on the new year are we? no way - overindulge ourselves silly is more like it. same for booze or lack of creativity or relationships or job change or whatever. it's always 'i'm going to start after so and so date and really mean it'. uh huh. and even if we do start new years day doing less of whatever vices we hope to minimize, how long will we keep to it? ah there's the rub isn't it? another year, another resolution, another opportunity. granted, sometimes we keep our promises to ourselves, but honestly now, how often and for how long? c'mon be honest.

yea, not often and usually not long.

so this year, you want change? you want something different this time? you want real change that has a much better chance of sticking? try something innovative - show some cojones and start before new years. because real change is hard. real change often requires some big environmental push... we get dumped, fired, sick, or hit a milestone in weight or age and get a wakeup call. then we act. but just choosing to act without the world pushing us is damn hard.

our brains get physically wired into routines. the habits we have are actually hardwired into our brains. our thoughts are electrical impulses and they shoot quickly down the well troden synaptic paths in our brains. try brushing your teeth with your left hand or putting your left sock then left shoe on before the right tomorrow and you'll see what i mean. but, and being the optimist, you knew a nice positive spin but was coming didn't you, you can rewire your brain and make new habits. yes it will be strange and awkward and probably uncomfortable at first, but getting up an hour or two early and working out or writing or meditating can be a learned behavior and become as much as a comfortable routine and sitting on the couch watching tv and eating ice cream. your brain will actually rewire if you go thru the motions long enough.

and if you really want to give yourself a fighting chance with hardwiring a new routine...don't wait until new years.

Watch your thoughts; they become words.

Watch your words; they become actions.

Watch your actions; they become habits.

Watch your habits; they become character.

Watch your character; it becomes your destiny. 

posted by bluematrix at 12/21/08 13:42 | link | comments (1)

I don’t read a lot of fiction, but occasionally a good one falls my way. usually the one’s i like will be written in a very unique style and also contain a lot of facts – sometimes to the point where i end up learning more about real world things than i do from some non-fiction works.

i just finished 'life of pi' by yann martel, about a boy stuck in a lifeboat in the pacific for nearly a year with a 450lb bengal tiger. very interesting book. early on in the book the boy, who grew up living near the zoo his father owned in india, talks about how zoo animals don’t really mind being in a zoo, contrary to common belief.

he says well meaning but misinformed people think animals in the wild are ‘happy’ because they are ‘free’. these people usually imagine a lion or cheetah roaming on the savannah after a good meal, looking over their offspring proudly and watching the sunset...simple, noble, meaningful.

then it is captured by wicked men and thrown in to tiny jails where it then yearns for ‘freedom’ and does all it can to escape. after awhile of being denied its ‘freedom’ it’s spirit is broken. not so says the author.

animals in the wild leave lives of compulsion and necessity within an unforgiving social hierarchy in an environment where the supply of fear is high and the supply of food low and territory that must be constantly defended. they are ‘free’ neither in time nor space. in theory, they could pick up and go, but such an event is less likely to happen than for a shopkeeper to drop everything and walk away from his life with only the clothes on his back and some change in his pocket after you yelled at him ‘go free!’. if a man wouldn’t go free, why would an animal, who is much more conservative by nature, do it?

a good zoo enclosure takes care of an animals needs and is just another territory if done right, different only in size and proximity to human territory. large territories in the wild are a matter of necessity not of choice, just as with humans – we live in small contained enclosures that contain everything we need and we do not need to be ‘free’ of them.

now this is not to say capturing wild animals and putting them in cages for us to look at is good thing. but neither is eating all their food and crowding them out of their habitats. so i guess if you think about it...would you rather be pampered in a penthouse suite at the ritz with free room service and unlimited access to a doctor or be homeless? 

posted by bluematrix at 12/08/08 22:14 | link | comments