How Bad Do You Want It?

Tim McGraw has a good song the goes "How bad do you want it? How bad do you need it?...." That's a question I have to ask myself everyday about staying healthy or doing the best I can with where I am. Am I going to choose the easy route or the harder one? I'm really convinced that success in this and a lot of other things is about two things: paying attention and commitment.

I listen to the Dave Ramsey show all the time. His advice to people about how to run their personal finances, get out of debt and stay out of debt is awesome. One of the things I have noticed that seems to be the common theme that runs through the reasons people who call in say they have some incredible credit card debt or student loan debt, etc. are:

• I just wasn't paying attention


• I don't know how it happened


• It slipped by me


• I took my eye off the ball
  

It's easy to do, isn't it? All of a sudden one day we wake up and we're in a pickle! How did it happen? Well, it turns out it happens in plain sight. Just not in our line of sight because we either forgot to pay attention to the relevant facts or just ignored them! You know how your mom always told you to look both ways before you cross the road? Are we still looking? I've gained five pounds recently and I realized I've allowed some old bad habits to slip back into my life. Old pre-Weight Watchers habits. So I have to become more alert to what I'm thinking about eating and re-commit to myself to get rid of that stupid five pounds. And I will.

We're all so incredibly busy these days. I talk to colleagues all over the country and they agree that the rpm's on the old hamster wheel have definitely increased. So there is so much to have to pay attention to. But if we want to continue to do all the things we want and need to do, first we have to stay healthy or get as healthy as we can. I know I have readers/followers with cancer and other health conditions and you are dealing the best you can with them. Huge hugs to you and I pray you are blessed with recovery. You know what commitment is!

As you may have read in a past blog, my husband has Stage IV lung cancer. So I'm of course of real advocate of smoke cessation. And we don't know if smoking was what got him or the chemicals he lived around on the farm when he was a kid or what, but we know smoking greatly increases risk for all sorts of things - especially lung cancer. He has been cancer-free for six months, but as all of you know who are struggling with cancer, it's three months at a time. But he feels really good right now. Well, we played golf this weekend with his brother and we only had a threesome so they teamed us up with a young guy in his early thirties. Nice guy, good player. Had a nice girlfriend along for the ride. But he chain smoked the whole 18 holes! Oh, I went back and forth with myself about saying anything. I believe there are no coincidences and I finally thought maybe I was supposed to talk to him. Turns out he had done some landscaping for us and he recognized Les so there was a connection.

So as we wrapped up and were headed for our cars I stopped him and told him about Les and all that we'd been through and that I didn't want him to have to go through that himself. We talked about it for a few minutes and he was very open to talking about how he's tried to quit. Maybe he will. But it will be paying attention to when he gets the urge to smoke and commitment to gutting out those times using a different behavior that will get him through. Wanting health more than cigarettes. I didn't see that glint in his eye, but sometimes things sink in later.

Anyway, this has gone kind of long, but I just want to encourage all of you in blogland to keep your eyes on the ball and stay committed to YOU! You are so very precious and part of what you have to give the world is still to come. Live to give it!