If you always do what you always did

You'll always get what you always got.


A friend reminded me of that today. And I told him the different version of the same sentiment I had run across awhile back.


What got you here,
won't get you "there."


And I got to thinking. I've been praying about change. Requesting, ad nauseum, of God that a change happen. In my heart and mind and thoughts and habits and attitudes. I've requested this a lot.


A few months ago I spent a couple of weeks petitioning for vision. And was rewarded. This blog became part of the vision i ended up with. And I have continued to neglect it. the vision and the blog. Why? habit.


Habit to "check in on facebook" as if this is a parent or jealous lover I need to verify my presence with. Habit to pour unmeasured amounts of sugar into my morning coffee. Habit to crack an extra coke if I'm stressed or 'celebrating.' Habit to leave the dishes until something smells. Habit to avoid truly pondering the things in my life that still bring me sadness, and in that avoidance to do just about anything else I can do in order to distract myself. Thus the copius amounts of time on facebook.


and the random annoyance that some of you do not post new facebook status and thoughts often enough. Because I keep refreshing, but it all looks the same. And I have to figure out what to do with myself to fill the rest of my time.


And yet, many days I feel like a chicken with her head cut off. I feel like I am running non-stop, and yet I am bored and sad and messy and lonely.


And so I beg for change. for something to be different. anything. and then I catch myself and amend that. Don't fire me or leave me jobless. Don't leave me homeless or truly broke and without income. Oh, and don't let me be terminally ill.

But my attitude, my heart, my thought processes, change those. Change my perspective. Change my mind.

All of that got me to thinking about last year's election. Things were really starting to heat up around this time last year. Obama's camp and slogan was Change. The Change We Need.

And now we have him, and he's trying to change things, and at least half of "us" are livid. In part because as much as we want "the poor" to have "affordable/reasonable healthcare" we don't want to think about anything in our lives changing to provide that. We want change in the abstract, non-committal form.

More importantly and to the point change always requires something of us. For my thoughts to change, I must pay attention. For my habits to change, I must replace the bad with better. For my heart to change, I must allow myself to feel the bad as much as I desire the good. But that requires effort and intent on my part. And as a lazy lazy lazy person, I'd rather hold the status quo.

but the pain of remaining the same is nearing the same level as the pain of changing. that would indicate to me that a new thing is starting. I'll keep you posted