Betsy Horvath

Category: Goals and Aspirations

  • Which Do You Want More?

    A lot of times the question I’m asking isn’t “what do you want?” It’s “which one do you want MORE?”

    For example:

    “Do you want to buy a new car? Or do you want to be out of debt? Which do you want more?”

    “Do you want to eat a baked good? Or do you want to be fit? Which do you want more?”

    “Do you want to watch the Kitten Cam? Or do you want to push forward on your book? Which do you want more?”

    And the problem I run into is I don’t want either of them more. I just want them both.

    In other words,
    “Do you want to play solitaire or do you want to write?”
    “Yes”
    “Do you want to shop at the Best Buy or do you want to pay down your credit card?”
    “Yes”
    “Do you want to have pizza or would you rather have low blood sugar?”
    “Yes.”

    I think you can see where this line of thinking can cause some issues.

    The problem is, when I ask the question “which do you want more?” the thing I actually WANT more is the thing that will not take me to a better place. And yet I know I shouldn’t want it, I know I should want the other, better thing, even though I don’t. So asking which I want more just leads me to answer “yes”

    I guess the question should be not “which do you WANT more?” but “which do you NEED more?” Much though I might rationalize needing a bagel (hey, I can rationalize any baked good), I know I need to be healthy more.

    So, I guess I’ll try to change the question I’m asking, because answering “yes” to “which do you want more”, just leads to inertia.  And I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve been inert long enough.

  • A Few Thoughts On Habits


     
     
     
     
     
     

     

    Habit:  an acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary. (www.dictionary.com)

    Habits. We all have them. Whether we want them or not.

    As the definition says, to create a habit you have to do the same thing over and over again, for an extended period of time, until the action or thought pattern becomes almost involuntary.

    Awesome. It’s like hardwiring your brain.  Talk about a timesaver!

    Buuuut….

    Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

    Albert Einstein

    Hmmm….

    This is where I have some difficulties. I have many good habits. For example, I brush my teeth and shower on a regular basis. I also have some habits that are not so good. If I recognize a bad habit and work to change it, that’s great. But I get into patterns where I do the same thing over and over again and expect that THIS time the result will be different.

    For example, if I stop at the store and buy croissants, then stuff them all in my mouth when I get home, chew them, then swallow them, my blood sugar will be high the next morning. I can do this every night of the week if I choose, and every time I stuff croissants in my mouth, chew them, and swallow them, my blood sugar will be high. It doesn’t matter if I tell myself that THIS time won’t matter. If baked goods go in and are swallowed, the numbers go up. Do it long enough, and the weight and medication go up as well.

    If I shop on Amazon, my credit card balance goes up. The action produces the result. I may tell myself that THIS time I can shop with abandon and the charges will not show up on my credit card, but they always appear.

    If I spend my free time on social media and surfing the net, no writing will be accomplished. Again, action – result.

    So when looking at my bad habits, I have to remind myself that the results are not going to be different if I keep taking the same action. The only thing that will change the result is to change the action causing it.

    And that sucks.

    Sure wish I had some miraculous habit-changing pixie dust. 😀

     

  • Goals, Dreams, and Remembering My Father

    I was thinking about my father as I drove into work today, and it made me feel kind of melancholy. We’re coming up on the third anniversary of his death, so he’s been in my thoughts more than normal, I guess.

    The reason I was feeling melancholy was not because he died. He’d suffered for a long time and saw death as a release. But I was thinking about the dreams my father had, his goals for his later years.

    They were simple dreams, really.  He wanted to buy a little truck and go around working as a handyman. He wanted to care for his house and lawn. He wanted to take long walks.  He wanted to travel.

    Then I thought about my own life, and my participation in it.  I have goals too. I have dreams. But what have I done to work towards them? Yes, I have a book published. Yes, I have written other things, some published, some which aren’t and never should be.  But I’ve known for years and years that I want to be a writer and it’s only recently that I’ve been committed to working towards that goal.  I’m stalled in a lot of other areas as well.  Why do I hesitate?  Why am I afraid?  What am I waiting for?

    It’s so much easier to devote your time and attention to the demands of ordinary day-to-day existence than it is to become extraordinarily “you.”

    Thinking about my father today reminded me that we don’t know what life is going to bring us. We can try to drop out of it, but life will always come in and sweep us away – whether we want it to or not. The illusion that we have all of the time in the world is just that – an illusion. My father did not imagine that he would die in a nursing home, trapped inside his own body. He thought he had time.

    Although I am feeling a little melancholy, this is not really a melancholy post. In my mind it’s a  hopeful one. Because we may not have all of the time in the world, but we do have today. The future will be what the future will be, but the choices we make today are what set it in motion, at least to a certain extent. So the important thing is to remember all of the things that are important. And to do the best you can. And to work towards your dreams.  Today.

    “You are never given a dream without also being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it, however.” – Richard Bach

  • Shaking the Piggy Bank

    Every year I fall into the “goals” trap. I think it’s because the shiny new year stretches before me and makes me think anything is possible. This year I have goals in two primary areas – writing and getting out of debt.

    The writing goals are important and I’ve talked about them before. But the “getting out of debt” goals might be even more urgent.

    If I could go back to the Betsy of 30 years ago, I would tell her not to get into debt in the first place. I would tell her to do without rather than charging stuff. I would tell her that the stuff she charges isn’t going to be worth a flea’s sigh in a couple of years anyway. I would tell her to save money for things. I would tell her that debt is like a bad marriage that never ends. I would tell her that debt is a way of selling yourself into slavery, that it’s a huge rock you have to carry around, that it just gets heavier and heavier as time goes on.

    I know sometimes you have to go into debt – there are all sorts of valid reasons why you would. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about unsecured debt. Credit card debt. I’m talking about “I need it NOW” debt. That’s the debt that’s killing me. I think you sell yourself down the river most of the time, not by having a massive emergency, but because you can’t control yourself when you’re at the Target. Or on Amazon. Or at the grocery store.

    So, 2012 is the year I begin getting out of debt. Again. I’ve tried before, but I’m really determined this time. I’m not getting any younger, and I don’t like the fact that the massive amount of debt I’m carrying keeps me from having the freedom to do things I’d like to do. Instead I must slave for the bill payments. And then I get discouraged and go shopping and add to them.

    No more.

    And thus, my friends, I have developed a strange and frightening thing. It is called a “Bud-get”. Huh. A budget. A plan for my money for the month. Look at that. *pokes budget*

    Do you hear that sound? That’s the sound of pennies squealing as they are pinched. Feel that moisture? That’s from juice being wringed out of dollar bills. Sense the uncertainty? That’s me saying – “Can I Do It? Well, CAN I?”

    Yes, I can.

    I just don’t want to.

    Because the thing about budgeting is you realize how much money you really have. And it’s not nearly as much as what you THINK you have.

    I like it better when I think I have more money, not less.

    But I’m going to do it. I won’t be out of debt this year but I’m going to get a good start on it.

    You might want to wish me just a wee bit of luck. ‘Cause baby, I’m going to need it.

     

  • Goals

    In the last couple of weeks, it’s been driven home to me how little control I have over my own life. Decisions that other people make, lives other people have lived, things other people say – all of them impact my life, and I have no control over it at all. Even if I bear no direct responsibility or have no power in the situation, the waves from the actions and judgments of others ripple out into the pool of life and rock my little canoe. I guess that’s just the way life is.

    It seems to me that I can have two responses to this. One is to try to escape from the effects of others. I can hide in my computer and play my games or surf the net. I can read books until 3:00 am and then go to work with only two hours of sleep. I can eat incorrectly and drug myself out on sugar and carbs. I can sleep my life away.

    This, to be honest, is my normal response when I feel helpless and my life seems to be out of my control. I float away and wake up later to realize that another year is gone. But now quite a bit of my life has floated down that stream and soon there won’t be that many years left for me to wake up.

    Plus it doesn’t work anyway. I may want to float away, I may wish I could drift, but the waves still rock me. And I accomplish nothing.

    The other response is to control what I can. And what I can control are my own actions and reactions. I can try to take my life back.

    So I’m trying to set some clear-cut goals. I’ve set goals before, and even met a few of them, but I’ve never approached my goals as strategies for my life. I’m going to try to do that – I’m going to try to know what I want to do, why I want to do it, and how I’m going to implement it.

    The implementation part is the bitch, because drifting away on my little canoe seems to be so much easier.

    Even though it’s really not.

    But I don’t want my life to drift away from me anymore. I don’t want to wake up in 2012 and realize all I have to show for the last couple of months is a well developed Sim.

    I’d rather have a well-developed Betsy instead.

    So I guess that means I’ll be setting some clearly defined and well-thought-out goals.

    God help me.