Living Life Deliberately

There's something about living deliberately that is very, very difficult. I had some moments of clarity on vacation those few weeks ago, and one of them was about some sort of a purposeful life. Getting to work at a specific time, every day, tracking how much time I spent watching TV, how cooking once again was slipping into a 'whatever will take less then 20 minutes' mode, how I was missing all my outside time now that the weather is warming up...those sorts of things.

As Janet Luhrs says:
"Simple living is about living deliberately. That's all. You choose your existence rather than sailing through life on automatic pilot."

And I've felt very much on auto-pilot these last few months.

So the first course of action was to begin waking up at 4:00am consistantly, so we could be at work by 5:30, and be able to leave by 3:00, leaving plenty of time in the evening for dinner, yardwork, conversation, and the VERY occasional television show - such as Heroes or House. This has also included going to be at 9:00pm every night to ensure plenty of sleep is had before the next work day.

We're now into 14 out of the standard 21 days to make something a habit, and it's getting much easier to roll out of bed when that alarm goes off. Going to bed promptly is still something of a challenge, but it's happening (it's the falling asleep part that's difficult), and life is becoming much more ordered.

I've been a bit surprised by how much time we're getting back by doing this. Even the simple act of going to work early cuts our commuting time down by a half hour each way - a full hour each day reclaimed, not to mention all the TV time that has been regained as well.

Though it's not felt great some days - for the most part it's been amazing how much things change when you decide to be purposeful, and then resolutely stick to it. Even when there are plenty of reasons why you don't have to.