Day #80 - Which Pain to Choose?

I have been getting mighty lazy about my posts. I am determined to do better when I get back from Las Vegas. We are heading out tomorrow to use the last nights of our timeshare we have there. We will be meeting with the customer service people to turn the time share back to them. It has been fun to have, but the cost has become too high to balance the benefits and we are not world travelers and no longer see the point. It seems we can get a better deal on a weeks vacation by bundling airfare, hotel & car than the one weeks worth of hotel. Granted, there are other benefits of exchange and memberships allowed by a timeshare, but we do not take advantage of them and so it is of little worth to us.

In the meantime, I have been sitting on something I heard in one of our meetings the other day that I wanted to write down. The idea goes something like this...

It seems that most of us are more willing to experience the pain of regret and indecision, than the pain of self-discipline and action; both encompass a certain amount of pain, but each has a very different result. This seems like an obvious scenario, but I have never thought about it in this way before and it has been in my mind all week long. If feels a lot like something my sister wrote once..."I never regret exercising, I only regret it when I don't."

I am very well versed in regretful pain, which leads to all kinds of self-degradation. We have been talking a lot lately about the voices we listen to inside our own minds and I have to say, I would never be so cruel to someone I cared about, let alone a stranger, as I often am to myself. I'm not depressed or anything, but this is another observation I have been thinking about often in the past weeks.

Last night I was happy to spend with my sisters who went with me to help at a fund raiser for a battered women's shelter in Davis County. Our job was to be spotters among a bunch of tables where people were bidding on pre-decorated Christmas Trees. We were told to "YIP" loudly and point when we saw someone in our respective sections hold up their bid cards. I LOVED the precious looks on Amy, Keri & Melanie's faces when we were told we had to do this. Add to this the fact that we were dressed pretty casually and when we got there found out it was practically a fancy dress ball event. My sisters are beautiful, so it didn't really matter they were wearing jeans, but it was still pretty funny.

We all had at least one opportunity to "YIP" and Keri was involved in the final tree bid and I was so proud watching her do her job like a pro and the final tree went to her table for $1,600. I am pretty sad I didn't take some pictures that I could have posted here - oh well, just one more missed opportunity.

I bring this up because Amy and I were chatting and she told me she has decided to live without regrets...she tells me it is easier said than done, but she is being very mindful of her choices lately and continually reminds herself that certain decisions are ok and there is no reason to look back. I also noticed she was talking about the different choices she has been making within this same effort; so she is doing more than just not regretting her bad or not best choices by actually taking action and making choices that create better results toward the life she wants to live. She is a great example to me of this principle and I am inspired to do the same in my own life. I will be thinking more about this while I am on vacation.

I Am Grateful,
HB

Diva Quote: "Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.” --Henry David Thoreau