What you make of your life is up to you.

19^th February 2012

Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength. Unknown Author

The white stuff has fallen once again but it only looks like a sprinkling so I won’t grumble.  I’ve also woke up with a throat infection – boo, white stuff on my tonsils means I’m going to have to go to the doctors – not my favourite place!

I was super organised yesterday afternoon, made a cottage pie for my dinner which being hungry I had a 3^rd, so it came to 8 for the mince mixture and 8 for the potatoes (because I added butter) but it was delicious and so worth it.  I’ve also made a chicken casserole which is only 11pp for the entire thing, 375g chicken breast pieces from Co-op, carrots, onions and 4 oxos with water.  I’m going to serve it with the rest of the mash mmm, proper comfort food for a snowy poorly day ;-)

Although I could just eat a Sunday Roast Dinner to be honest, I’ve got a feeling I might be going to the supermarket and freezing a chicken casserole!  We’ll see.

Well apart from the throat thing, I feel so much better than I did a week ago, for the last 7 days I’ve treated my body with a bit more respect, I’ve fed it healthy food, I’ve hydrated it with water and I’ve given it a rest from alcohol.  Have these things made a difference; of course they have, if you treat anything with respect it behaves in a more positive manner, whether it’s a person or your body! 

Yesterday I managed to run 4 miles, first time in two weeks and although I wouldn’t say I enjoyed it, it wasn’t as difficult as I expected, I’d gone out to do 3 and was impressed that I managed the extra mile. 

Last week when I decided it was time to start taking more care of myself, I started looking through lots of my old personal development books, and I found out the ten rules for being human, the first time I read them years ago, I nodded a lot and smiled, I thought they were worth sharing;

Ten Rules for Being Human by Cherie Carter-Scott

1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it's yours to keep for the entire period.

2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called, "life."
3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial, error, and experimentation. The "failed" experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ultimately "work."
4. Lessons are repeated until they are learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson.
5. Learning lessons does not end. There's no part of life that doesn't contain its lessons. If you're alive, that means there are still lessons to be learned.
6. "There" is no better a place than "here." When your "there" has become a "here", you will simply obtain another "there" that will again look better than "here."
7. Other people are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.
8. What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.
9. Your answers lie within you. The answers to life's questions lie within you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.
10. You will forget all this.

Now you’re either nodding or shaking your head from side to side and totally disagreeing, either way, only you decide your future and you can sit wallowing in self pity if things aren’t working out the way you want them to, or you can turn your life in the direction you would like it to go – easy – no it isn’t, worth it – ABSOLUTELY!

Enjoy your Sunday, you won’t get another one for 168 hours!