Better!

“Any change you make for the better is better”*

Think of the time and space in which we now live. Nearly the entirety of every piece of information ever theorized, created or discovered is at your fingertips. Not in a library to be gleaned or a professor’s head to be learned, but already summarized for you in a video or Wikipedia article. The moment the fancy strikes, you can video chat with anyone you know (or don’t) in any country of the world. The dialog which used to be achievable only through time spent writing letters in your own handwriting and days spent waiting to receive a letter is now achieved at the speed of sound. The social media pages which used to showcase your friends’ weekend excursions and photos of their grandkids are now littered with their posts selling things promising to make your life/body/kids instantly so much better and make you rich too! We can think of what we’d like to eat, input the thought into an app and within minutes have that food on our door step. With all these things making our desires so instantly available is it any wonder that we expect all of our ambitions to be achieved through a few fairly quick and easy steps?

Do me a favor and think again. Think of all of the things that you would like to change in your life. Think of your diet, all the things you should eat but don’t, the things you have decided that you shouldn’t eat but you still do, the meals you want to make and don’t. How about your relationships? Do you have any friends who you miss and would like to reconnect with? What about the nights you want to spend hanging out with your kids, the things you wish you said to your spouse, or the things you want to stop saying to your co-workers. Think about your wardrobe, your beauty routine (or lack thereof), your workout schedule, personal goals. What about your spiritual life?

If you’re like me that list is long. So insanely long. And perpetually growing even longer. It’s such a long list that I routinely find myself working on one thing to cross of my list, to finally master, and get completely derailed by three much more pressing things on the list that crept back on while I was “mastering” this. You know, finally getting in a groove of running two days a week and then all of a sudden you feel like crap because you got out of the habit of going to bed on time and eating well? Yeah. That.

Let yourself get a good dose of disappointing yourself on your slumping shoulders, and then read on for my hunk of truth. Well it isn’t MY hunk of truth but I’ve adopted it, as a mantra. I may soothingly remind myself of it multiple times a day…

“Any change you make for the better is better”*

You may have a list of things you’d like to improve that, like mine, feels like it’s scrawled on a roll of parchment so long its weight makes you want to give up and just eat cake for breakfast while you call out of work and watch historical British romances. But you also know that you have the power to change something, even something tiny and very doable. Your list may have some pretty intense objectives… “No chocolate ever. Only repurposed, homemade clothing. Organic veggies as a main dish for every dinner. 90% of waste recycled” and I applaud that. Please, keep working to improve your life and the lives of those around you. Without our drive to improve the world would literally crumble. But, remember, every change you or I make, whether seemingly minute or hugely impossible, is a change that you and I have made to better ourselves, the world and the lives of all those around us.

Maybe today you find yourself feeling like you can only take action on one of the things that you want to improve in your life, and it feels small and inadequate. Dear, friend, whatever you do, don’t let that thought into your mind. You are powerful and capable. You can change whatever you want in your life. Whether today you decide to entirely rid your life of anything made by unethical practices, or you choose to leave one box of processed snacks in the store in favor of fruit and veg, you are doing something valuable and beneficial in your life. Keep it up:)

As always, I welcome discussion, ideas and thoughts, so comment away:)

*Quote actually from the most wonderful podcast, On Air with Ella, Episode 079 Jenna Elfman. Go check it out!