A New Beginning

A new year has arrived and with it a new beginning. Such are the words of poets and minstrels, preachers, lay people and those who wish their words to sound lofty and sophisticated. Me, I just want to vent.

2010 is the year of Jack. I declared it to be such because 2009 was the worst year of my life. It was a time of great uncertainty, pain, aggravation and frustration. I won't waste more words than that upon it because it is gone. Now, we have the new beginning.

The new beginning is important to me. I have composed a mental checklist of things that I am unhappy with and wish to change. A laundry list of labels and limitations that I want to set aside because

Those three paragraphs are now locked inside the blogger's prison. I didn't sentence them to death by deletion, but I was tempted to. I don't like them. I don't like the tone or the structure. I don't like them because they don't work for me.

Here is the deal, 2009 was bad. I said it and I meant it. It is done. The horse is out of the barn and what's done is done. Now I want to focus upon making changes. So I sat down and created a list of all of the things in my life that I want to fix, improve or eliminate.

And then I went back through it and identified the things that are within my control and those that are not.

The list is much larger than I would like it to be. Collectively those items are a bit overwhelming. It is easy to look at all of it and feel like the world is coming down around me. That is why I divided it up into the two categories. It makes it easier to develop a realistic plan to make the adjustments that I want to make.

I am stubborn, relentless and determined. On the whole those traits have served me well, but in some areas they haven't done much but exacerbate my frustration. You can compare it to trying to tear down a brick wall with nothing more than your hands. It is not impossible to do, but it is far harder than using a proper tool.

So it is time to stop bloodying my knuckles and bruising my shoulders. There is a time for brute strength and a time for using your head. Apparently when I turned 40 they removed my brain and replaced it with a melon. It is time to kick that rotten piece of fruit out so that I be smarter about how I do things.

I tell the kids all the time that there is a reason your head isn't completely hollow and as much as I kid around about it, mine isn't either. If I am going to own 2010 I am going to have to take a different approach to it all. The old way of doing things isn't working, so I am going to adjust.

That is a promise that I have made to myself. I owe it to me to take the initiative and do what needs to be done. I deserve more than I am getting and I can make that happen.

Time will tell if this is a lot of hot air or something more.