The examined life

Some time last week, I found this list of "Ten Questions to Ask at the Start of a New Year or On Your Birthday". There are ten main questions, and twenty-one extras to expand the list to a set of daily questions for a whole month. It's not my birthday, and it's not the new year (though it would be close if I were Jewish); it's just a new month, and a month that conveniently has enough days for all these questions. :) It seems like as good a time as any to begin examining my life a little more methodically.

Here's today's question, and my thoughts on it:

1. What's one thing you could do this year to increase your enjoyment of God?

I could definitely use some improvement in my ability to remember the good and lovely things that happen each day. I'm good at noticing them, but it's too easy to forget them. For at least a little while, I'll try to keep a record of at least one thing I'm grateful for each day. Fall's a good season for that, what with Thanksgiving coming up and all.

Why all this meditation and borderline saccharine posting lately? It's a little hard to explain succinctly. To begin with, I read a lot of the blogs I read because I like getting glimpses into the lives of their authors. An awful lot of the people on my blogroll are people I want to be like in some way or other: they're funny, or wise, or good parents, or joyful, or good writers (those are inclusive, not exclusive, or's). Now, I definitely enjoy a good snark as much as the next person, but I'm not always that great at being funny about them, so I'm trying to take a bit of a break from the snarking until I can take myself less seriously. I haven't got any cute kids to tell stories about, and don't anticipate having any in, say, the next few months.

So what's left to emulate? Well, one thing I've been thinking about a lot lately is the care and effort some of my blog-friends put into examining their lives and making changes to reflect what they really want from life. Amira and MFS and Alaska and Sarah and Sora come to mind, but they're far from the only examples. Left to myself, I analyze and over-analyze details, but I haven't historically been that great at looking at the bigger picture, at figuring out what I want and going for it. So, this year, I'm using whatever gimmicks it takes (like this month of questions and gratitudes) to haul myself over to the track I want to be on -- the big wide road of Examining My Life, where hopefully I'll be able to find the side roads and tiny paths I want to set myself on.

Today I am grateful for: The weather! It's finally fall here. The daytime sun is warm, but there's a chill in the air when I wake up. Cold air feels clean and wakes me up, and makes indoor spaces seem that much warmer and cozier.