Reinvent Your Life, but why?

I have been reading a book about reinventing one’s life and part way through began thinking about doing so, but where to begin and what to start with.

I first looked up reinventing to see if I really wanted to. “Invent- to use ingenuity in making, developing or achieving, to hatch, devise, formulate, contrive, fabricate, concoct, make up, think up, dream up ” to conceive of, produce first, to make up”. My old Webster’s New Twentieth Century Dictionary, Unabridged Second Edition, does not give reinvent a definition, so I looked up “Re” which is a prefix meaning back, as to repay, and”Re” a prefix meaning again, anew, over, again, as in reappear, retell, reinvent. Sounds good so far.

Next, the book suggested that I should stand back and look at my life, my daily habits and priorities, asking myself, ‘do I need more laughter, more friends and more challenges?’ Then I followed the suggestion to make a list of the things I wanted to change.

My list:
1.My health – more exercise – lose weight

2.My lifestyle needs verve. I looked this up in the dictionary and well, WOW, I want this. Verve: a quality of mental and physical  forcefulness lively, energetic, emphatic, eager quality or manner. A spirit, dash, élan (distinctive style or flair) vigor, bounce, vivacity, animation, vim, liveliness. Oh yes, verve sounds like what I want to be — to have.

3.I’m in a rut – ever though it seems a comfortable one, nevertheless it is a rut. Same o, same o.

4.I can’t seem to get enthused over things. (This is where verve comes into play)

5.To do something new seems too much of an effort. If I had verve, well, I would be more energetic and eager, which are qualities to give me ‘get up and go.’  Right?

6.It’s just too much trouble, did I just say that?

7.I’m lazy. OK, I admitted to something that I have suspected for a few years now. I have let  laziness creep into my life. If I’m not careful, it may take over too much of my life. Therefore, I need to reinvent my self. I need VERVE.

8.Maybe I  need more interests and allow changes to open doors to new experiences and opportunities to do something different. I’ll make a list my interests – those things I wanted to do and have never done and the things I love to do and want to do more of.

9.Should I use a different approach to the same problems? This sounds promising because so many of my problems are the same.

10. There are the two major considerations that come into play when making changes in my life and they are: family obligations and work obligations

11.I just thought of another obstacle, do I have the courage to make changes that could alter my life style and not upset too many others in my life (see family obligations)

My next step was to look up encouraging quotes and I found the following ones I liked:

“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” – Albert Einstein”  This one encourages me to keep being creative and open to change.

“I may not be the man I want to be, I may not be the man I ought to be, I may not be the man I could be, I may not the may not be the man I can be, but praise God, I’m not the man I once was” Martin Luther King     This one reminds me that we do change during our life, at least we should, and we always should be looking towards the “man I could be”.

“Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward.” – C.S. Lewis    I like this one and it reminds me that courage is necessary, sometimes letting go of old life styles is the only way to move forward.

“If work were so pleasant, the rich would keep it for themselves.” – Mark Twain   I just like Mark Twain and his quote reminds me that all work and no play is never a good thing.

Now that I have made my list, looked up encouraging quotes, I suppose my next move is to refine my list, being more specific as to what changes I really want to do and set in place those changes that will reinvent my life.

During the next few weeks I shall post on my blog my progress and decisions made.     Pat S