2010 Mission Statement

I rarely write these down, but I wanted to make sure I'm not crazy for doing this, so here goes.

Every year--at the start of the year--I start thinking about what I want to focus on during the year.  I usually pick just one thing.  Last year it was physical fitness.  I had this phrase that I kept poking in my brain--my inner athlete.  I wanted her to feel the love, so last year I focused a lot of energy and time on working out and trying new things--30 day Shred (the video that makes me want to DIE, but also makes me feel strong), running, walking, a fitness buddy (hey Debbi!  I miss you!), and yoga--all done regularly.  And by September I was in pretty decent shape, back in my pre-pregnancy denim and skirts, back to feeling pretty healthy.

This year, I've been thinking about this passage from the end of a Christmas Carol.  I read it back in December and it's been stuck in my mental socks ever since:


"Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms.  His own heart laughed; and that was quite enough for him."

Charles Dickens

 I've been thinking about how much time and energy and STRESS I expend in dwelling on what others think about me.  About how I look, how I dress, how I speak, how I write, how I parent.  And it bothers me.  Mostly because I know that at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter what other people think about me.  And also because I don't WANT to care what they think, I don't want to dwell on it.  I just want to live my life.

So that's what I'm doing in 2010.  I'm living my life and if people laugh.  They laugh.  If they criticize, they criticize.  If they stop reading, stop calling, stop whatever-ing.  So be it.  I am M and I can be nothing more nor less.  This is the year I set myself free from everyone else's opinions.