Just saw Barb's "Quitting Smoking" thread, & I think it's great! Queen AlienBZ (my Mom; I'm AlienBZ on the other gaming sites I belong to, such as Adventure Point, Just Adventure, etc) used to smoke for years but finally quit cold turkey on January 1, 1979 (IIRC what she told me several weeks ago when she and I were discussing the need for me to clean up my act) for her New Year's Resolution that New Year's Day 1979.

And here's why we need to clean up our acts -

But, first, here's the backstory:

I think Christmas is all about hope, and love, joy, peace. I'm at the point now in my life where my best friend told me today that if we don't turn from our bad habits, if we keep letting them dominate us (such as anger, smoking, etc) and clean up our acts (only reason I'm thinking this is the Old Year 2011 is coming to an end and a Brand New Hopeful Better Than All My Old Years New Year (hey, I'm getting excited!) 2012 is fast coming upon us) then God will not work the miracles that we want in our lives, b/c I know Christmas is a time for miracles - after all, when Jesus Christ came to earth as a man, that, in itself, was a miracle - the first Christmas Day miracle in history, and Jesus did many miracles in his day and he still works these miracles even today thru the Holy Spirit. I know b/c my best friend had miracles happen to her already and so did her live-in boyfriend. And me, I'm expecting a miracle myself and also for Queen AlienBZ (Mom). And I believe that the good stuff of Christmas (hope, love, miracles, etc) shouldn't end on January 1 or 2, they should continue just as strongly all thru the New Year, and get "fired up" that is, renewed every future Christmas (such as on Christmas Day 2012, for instance) so they'll continue all thru the New Year of 2013, etc, etc, etc.

So, ok, shall we begin to discuss the need to clean up our act (that is, if we really need to, I'm not trying to force you into anything but only if you really truly want to, rather)?

I'll go first:

For the past 50 years (since I was 8 years old) I've had a problem with anger in my life, this anger was my anger, and then 10 years after that (at age 18) I had a problem with jealousy of others in my life & I let it dominate me and it controlled my behavior. That's all I'm going to say about myself at this point, if you want to know any details, just PM me.

I do not believe in New Years Resolutions and I believe that any moment in time is the right time to better ourselves.

Good luck to you on your journey.

Ana

I agree with Ana.

Ana, could you please tell us why you don't believe in a new year's resolution? I'd sure like to hear it.

Cruise, I'm pretty sure she explained why in the rest of that sentence.

A true commitment is made when you are ready to embrace a change in your life. For instance if I want to get healthy and want to start eating right and I am ready to do so I will do it right now, right this second. Postponing it to New Years Eve serves no purpose. If I choose to be unhealthy till then only says you are not fully committed.

I always hate January at my gym because it is full of new members keeping "New Years Resolutions". In two weeks, the club returns to normal and you will not see the newbies anymore. The odds of someone keeping a New Years REsolution are slim.

If you wish to work on your temper, today is a great day to do so.

Ana

My New's Year's Resolution this year is the same as every other year and that is to make NO resolutions.

Ana has the right idea, live every moment of every day the best you possibly can. You don't have to wait for a monumental 'date' to start living well.

Congrats to you cruise02 for wanting to work on your issues. Best of luck and I'll send some positive thoughts that you achieve all you want.

That makes so much sense Ana I stopped making them years ago!!

Ana, I printed out this thread, showed it to Queen AlienBZ, and the Queen agrees with you, Ana. She said "you're right" about not waiting until a certain day to start cleaning up our acts.

So since I want a clean heart, a clean mind, and a clean mouth, I'm starting immediately, right this second!

Ok, I'm now committed. (As soon as I typed the "Ok, I'm now committed," a smile came to my mouth/lips).

EDIT - Title bar of thread was changed according to what Ana helped me to realize re New Year's Resolutions (Thanks, Ana!).

Well, some people need to have something
to start with, and if it is the new year
to make resolutions ...
Dont forget that we are not all the same,
so we do things different.

Cruise

and

Thanks, Boomers! Ok, Here's what I've just did (although the location is a bit different from my current location - the location in photo is at a friend's house, but currently I'm at home, but the action (tossing it all out) is identical.

Cruise02 Tossing It All Out A Moment Ago Today

Since I did this, I feel a bit cleaner inside now, almost as if I've been washed with soap & water.

I totally agree with Ana. Last year I made up my mind to lose weight. I reached my goal by December and lost 19 lbs.

Good luck to you.

Bets

I think ive found your 19 pounds flutist.

Atta girl Cruise! Good luck to you!

Ana

Um, what do you think of the photo I linked you to? It represents the New Me.

Plus, as I've been inactive for many months (over a year, IIRC) and eating a bit too much junk food (cookies, crackers, candy), I decided a complete overhaul (hence the photo representing the new me) is in order - I'm starting to eat right (so far today I had stuffed cabbage, and 1/2 toasted Christmas dinner roll w/ butter, I put two Christmas cookies out (but did not eat them yet - waiting), then I figured I should start taking walks so I'd get my old strength, energy, muscles, and stamina back - walked 1 mile today regardless of the 29˚ F in our area and 9 MPH wind, as well as I've already (since getting an imac G3 a month ago) started to help Mom carry heavy bags of groceries upstairs from our cellar when she goes to the grocery store back of our house (as well as going to gro. store for her sometimes) which I've never wanted to do before getting that imac G3.

And starting this week (this past Monday) I've started taking a bath like I used to in the old days - once every other night, (Mom does the same), but previous to this I tried to avoid taking a bath (too lazy, I guess) as many days as possible, and only took one after I was all smelly.

So now that I'm back from my walk, I'm going to eat, have hot chocolate, these cookies that I set out for myself, finished that other half of the Christmas roll toast from earlier today.

EDIT - Had the other Christmas roll half w/ butter, cookies, H2O, hot chocolate & hot tea W/ milk - Yummy! Now I'm all warmed up, thankful (even though the sun was shinning) that I did not take a laptop, walk 1.5 mile to bus stop to go to Barnes & Noble today & wait out in the cold for busses, then have to worry about walking all that way back home!

EDIT 2 - Had been worrying nonstop since Oct 2011 so at 8 PM tonight after Queen AlienBZ told me something I did not like to hear after I had repeatedly voiced these worries to her (and after having received the Queen's answer to this worry, no wonder the Queen didn't like it, etc) I left the room feeling very angry, and verbalizing out loud, I felt like cussing under my breath (which has been nearly impossible to break), but I didn't cuss, instead I took a seat, got out my journal, recorded what just happened - this incident, what I was worrying about, and ended up with having to make one of 2 choices:

--choice # 1 - keep worrying, keep pestering the Queen, and face the negative consequences of that (negative) choice;

--choice # 2 - stop worrying, stop pestering the Queen, wait it out (whatever I was worrying about) and fill my too much time on my hands between Dec 28 & Jan 28 with things to keep busy on, and enjoy the positive benefits of this (positive) choice. I choose to do Choice # 2.

This is what my best friend taught me, the Good Shepherd told us that we have choices (negative vs positive) to make in life, and that each choice has consequences based on that choice that we made. Previous to my friend's instructions, I was totally unaware of this.

Good for you Cruise! Every little bit helps. WAlking is good for you in so many ways and being active clears your mind and soul. The more active you are the more you will want to do more things. It sounds like you are ready to do some changes. The picture is great!
You did a nice job on it.
Ana

A few moments ago I grabbed 2 more Christmas cookies to eat, as I was finishing up the first cookie, Mom was in the kitchen and it's like an unseen Something/Someone moved Mom to tell me, "You can't live on cookies. Do you want me to make you a chicken (using part of the Christmas chicken) sandwich on a biscuit?"

I replied, "Yes. Is that the Christmas dinner roll?"

Mom said, Yes, and I finished the first cookie, laid the other down, waited till I was given my chicken sandwich. Am now in the process of eating said chicken sandwich.

Isn't it amazing that when you're really committed, an unseen kind of Positive Force moves and causes things to happen that are conductive to you staying committed?

You may call that Force anything you wish.

Just finished the chicken sandwich.

EDIT: Where do everybody go? Did you all abandon this thread (dropped like a hot potato) already b/c of what I've said (I hope not)?

Also am cutting back on salt so I won't get high blood pressure.

THose are all good choices cruise.

Hey Cruise02, I procrastinate and I need a day to focus resolutions, better behavour etc so why not New Years Day? When I wanted to loose weight I used Lent to give up sugar - the year befor when I gave up eating meat - Lent again. Just knowing it was Lent made me stick to those diets.

Whatever works - use it

Your resolutions will build your strength/charater

Don't know if it is allowed here or not, but lately I'm getting more serious about the Good Book. Before I was just casual about it.

But anyway I realized a possible reason why I keep making excuses for not cleaning up my act is the fear of success - I'm like, I feel safe 'n' snug in my bad habits so I keep doing them. The fear of success is maybe I'm afraid to get out there and start helping people with their computers once I become a computer tech in 3.5 years from now (having started school this past Sept '11) or so, I sort of don't know what will happen to me once I succeed in finishing my education, getting a driver's license, and launching a career, so the other day I ordered this book on Amazon overcoming the fear of success

Another possible reason that I keep going back to my bad habits is b/c I'm lazy. I get lazy when it's rainy all day for more than one day in a row, and I can't get out. When I'm stuck in the house I just laze around the house acting mopey.

Since school let out in mid-Dec. and I have until Jan. 30 before next semester's classes start, I'm trying ways to get out of the house (against insurmountable circumstances), and although I was successful a few times already, having gone to Bible study about 3 Saturdays, my best friend's house (and staying all day this past Sat & Sun, coming home Sun night) all day on 2 Saturdays, going to Barnes & Noble's cafe to game on the go approx. 2 times already (since school let out), I'm the type of person that wants to be on the go while Mom's been there, done that when she was younger, now Mom wants to stay home, and rest and relax. I'm trying to keep myself busy these days, but being cooped up in the house, it's hard as I keep getting low and down in the dumps. That's when the excuses (and temptation to go back to bad habits) come. (sigh)

I can't wait until Jan. 30 when classes start.

<update>

In my Bible Study lesson my teacher (on a 1 and 1 basis) started studying about what not cleaning up our acts does this past Saturday and when Mom & I got home I started thinking about how keeping the unclean behavior in my life would prevent me from getting my blessings from the Good Shepard, and now I'm on the verge of tossing out that unclean behavior from my life, except I found out that I have a hard heart this past Tues (which I really need to work on).

I was under the impression you had done this for your New Year's resolution? Did you quit? Good luck on your journey.

Ana

Have to admit, yes, I did quit (due to feeling down in the dumps) but Tomorrow (3/12/11) will hopefully be a better day; to date, a few days ago I installed my Driver's Ed 99 software along with my racing wheel onto one of my computers I have in my office to do a few practice sessions on learning how to drive a car. Yes, one of my goals is to learn to drive a car - so I can borrow Mom's car to go to Barnes & Noble/Panera Bread and game on the go after supper when I'm finished with school, have a job hopefully at Best Buy's Geek Squad so I can gain experience fixing people's computers and not have to rely on the lousy bus service in our area nor have to walk far to bus stop/back home, worry about time of day/weather conditions when I want to get out to the local coffee shops with my laptops to game on - and I drove the virtual car in my Driver's Ed program around the block a total of 7 times, first time having a wreck, next few times making it a little farther, until the last few times I almost made it back safely to the Driver's Ed software's Virtual Driving School Parking Area in the Virtual Car, and boy, I felt so happy that I took the time out to do this!

Congrats! Tell yourself it "will be" a better day and you will find that it will indeed be one. Good luck driving!

Ana

Oh, Thank you soooooooo much, BET!

BET, what you said about Monday being a better day - you were right! Mom took me up to the community college campus where I signed up for 2 summer classes in the computer tech (IT support) field and renewed my fedral grant for school for the coming 2012/2013 term, but after we got home I discovered that one of the summer classes that I signed up for was 1 credit/much shorter than the other class (which is 3 credits/10 weeks) so next week Mom's going to take me back up to the campus so I can add a 3 credit class that'll be 10 wks so as to knock off 2 years off of the length of my schooling (projected length = 3.5 yrs with the addition of 6/7 credits summer classes), otherwise school would take 5 years - and this is only for the PC/network admin training.

Also, with the driving thing, I just got this driving testing software **this**

(but I'd like to set this aside until I'm actually taking real-life driving lessons/have learners' permit before I use it) which came with a pamphlet saying that there is another software package available that goes more in depth regarding driving mistakes that add to car accidents in addition to other driving-relasted stuff that cost $75 and hopefully that I could buy for my birthday (am more interested in this one for after using Drivers Ed 99 for a bit).

Excellent! Positive thinking brings about positive changes!

Ana

Guys, I decided that I couldn't wait until my birthday (might buy a game or 2 then) so I sprang for this driving software **here**.

Good luck!

Ana

Thanks, BET - I used this good luck to have the Drivers Ed 99 virtual instructor pass me (although I attempted about 30 or 40-something times to get the pass) the first driving lesson of this Drivers Ed 99 software's "drive around the block" lesson which simulates driving around a city block (as opposed to a suburban) today. I must've did something correctly even though I made about 6 - 8 driving errors during this last driving attempt before I did that right thing that made the virtual instructor pass me.

Now I'm ready to take the next virtual driving lesson from this software - the drive around the cones lesson.

That's great! Keep up the good work.

Ana

The SimURide program arrived today. Now must see about getting a KVM switch so I can use it (b/c I think one of the Dell towers in my office have a 2 GHz CPU, have to check the RAM in it since this program requires a 2 GHz CPU, 1 GB RAM for XP) after I try to attach the driving wheel to my spare USB hub and a Male to male USB cable to this in an attempt to save me having to disconnect/reconnect the driving wheel to each computer (my old Dell I'm using currently and this other Dell tower.

Yesterday I had anxiety at about 4:45 PM (this is when you cannot wait for something to happen) when my friend said she'd call back at 5:30 PM, so when I went to my office I went back to the Drivers Ed 99 "drive around the block" lesson, I deliberately pushed the anxiety away by focusing on that lesson, and my driving went smoothly with the Virtual instructor passing me the second time with a debriefing report of only a few driving errors (the fewest in all this time that I was driving with this program these days); this tells me I successfully beat anxiety - correct?

That is a great start Cruise. It is good to have something that takes the focus off something that causes anxiety in you. Keep it up!

Ana

Just decided today (this hour at 9:15 a.m.) to start thinking/being positive. Asked Mom if it'll take years and years to start getting positive results out of this new way of thinking, (as opposed to the phrase "negative thoughts get negative results") Mom said "no, [it won't]" next I made this decision (to be positive) and as I was putting a cup of tea in microwave oven I felt like I've just taken a bath.

Cruise that is a wonderful decision and it will make a difference in your life.

Today did a few dishes that were left the the sink. Earlier today I jumped to the task of raking the cut-up grass on the lawn when the Queen asked me to do this.

That's great Cruise. I am sure the Queen appreciates it.

Ana

I'd like to add that when I was doing the dishes I thought of asking the Queen to pay me/reward me but as soon as I thought of this, I rapidly changed my mind b/c of a scene from my Central High game where the MC (game is an interactive movie that presents real-life situations and choices based on moral/ethical values) and in this scene the MC was mowing the old lady's yard, she offered him $$$, but he refused it out of the goodness of his heart, so this is what influenced me to change my mind about asking the Queen for cash for doing dishes and also forgoing asking her either for cash or a reward for raking the grass.

I think the fact that the Queen is there for you every day is payment enough. It may be hard, but a good lesson I teach my children is that among family we should accept the fact that we made the person happy by doing something to make their lives easier as a reward.

Ana

Now that our house is getting back to normal, the Queen is planning to remodel the house and extend the dormers by 4 ft so the slanted walls on one side would then be made straight so I'd have more storage space for my books, etc, as all this time the slant in the wall had been cutting down on wall space available for storage - the walls were originally straight up to about 4 feet or so, then the slant begins (I guess you guys know what I mean), so now that I'm finished with my classes after taking my finals, and I'm taking a 5 - 6 wk summer class at the college, I have from today on until May 21th free time before that summer class starts, and just tonight it dawned on me for the first time that with several projects lined up,

--learning the Wintermute engine to create my first game,
--creating a movie in Premiere Pro v2,
--editing the photos to be used in the game/movie in photoshop CS 2,
--backing up my Acer notebook's HDD files and restoring its OS, and reinstalling certain programs back in the Acer,
--gaming on the go at the local coffee shop,

I'm now beginning to understand how valuable a person's free time is, b/c in the past I assumed that I had unlimited time to waste, as a result I'd waste it by putting things off and not care about where it went nor what I did, but now I'm beginning to picture my schoolwork as its like having a job b/c you have to do work that the teacher tells you to do, just like in a real job you have to do whatever work the boss tells you to do, you never talk back to the teacher or the boss, since I'm picturing my instructors as they're like the boss at work.

Now that I know that my free time between today and the 21th is limited, I have to plan carefully how to make the most of it and not waste it.

What do you guys think of all this I've said?

Sounds like you have the situation well in hand Cruise. I hope you find a nice assortment of things to fill your time.

Ana

Um, what do you mean, "I have the situation well in hand"?

Your time off and such.

Ana

This afternoon I thought this evening when the Queen is relaxing in front of the TV that would be a good time to take down our old wireless network and set up our new one, now that I'm glad I made 2 B's for my finals on the 2 networking classes I took this past (spring 2012) semester, so during the twilight hours tonight I reset the router and after several unsuccessful attempts, I finally got our new wireless (I'm accessing the GB forums right now wirelessly from my MacBook Pro) network, which I have learned in school both semesters (fall '11 & spring '12) to use WPA2-SPK (AES) security, which was not used perviously on our wireless network during all this time that we were online (since about 2001), and it took me about 2 hours (I finished at about 9:59 or so to successfully set up the new network) as opposed to having to keep trying in vain well into the wee hours, and now I'm relaxing like the DC comic super hero, Flash, says "when I want to relax, I play ping-pong with myself".

By this I mean I'm just posting my latest questions or 2 on a couple of the message boards that I'm a member on, and using the internet on another laptop to d/l a utility to scan its hardware components in order to ask a question over on another forum, as well as posting a couple of messages here at GB.

So BET, would you say I have good time management skills?

Excellent!

Ana