Living on purpose

I want to live on purpose. What I mean is that I don't want to live just doing whatever happens my way, "accidentally" if you will. I want to decide what I want to do and do it.

Living deliberately has always been something I wanted to do, but had a really hard time doing, either because I can't decide what I want or having decided what I want, I fail to follow through on it. I think most people have at least somewhat of a hard time with this, so I am not unusual, but this is no less of a problem for being common.

This recently came up as an issue in my life for a couple reasons. The first will be familiar to anyone who has read my blogs. I am trying to decide if I want to remain married. There are a lot of considerations, but I have enough information that I should be able to decide. That isn't really the hard part. The hard part is being willing to get a divorce if the answer is "no" and really accepting reality exactly as it is today if the answer is "yes".

The second reason that living "on purpose" is important now, is that, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the turmoil in my marriage, I began drinking excessively and smoking, even though neither had been much of an issue at all in the first 43 years of my life. I don't want to smoke. I don't want to drink excessively either. Both make me feel bad physically as well as mentally. I don't want to be a drunk or a smoker. I want to be a runner.

I have tried cutting back several times, but moderation doesn't seem to work. So I decided to stop altogether. It just so happens that all three of my friends have also decided to stop drinking and the two who smoked (somewhat casually) decided to stop smoking too. They inspired me, particularly my closest friend who has really struggled with this, and is now starting week 3 of total abstinence.

I want to be able to decide that I will not smoke or drink, and do so. At some later stage, I think I want to decide I want to drink moderately (2 drinks/day) and do that. But for now, at least for a while, I want to go completely without.

I want to be able to decide that I will start running everyday and do that.

So here's to being who I want to be... cheers.