Week of Enlightenment Day 1

I've decided to have a Week of Enlightenment! What might a week of enlightenment be, I hear you asking. Well, it's a week to change and rearrange all the negativity in my life. I'm going to (for one week, at least) cancel out the bad and see if it gets replaced with the good.

My three vices are the target: gluttony, sloth, and extravagence. I could add acedia to the list, but I feel like that is sort of formed out of the other three.

So, here's the plan:

Time Frame: September 27th to October 5th (a little more than one week)

Rules:

1. No Drinking!
2. Make lunch at home... no eating expensive school lunches.
3. No Smoking!
4. Jog (a short distance every day)
5. Push ups/sit ups (morning before work and immediately after work)
6. Wake up at 6 AM rather than 7 AM.
a. Study Japanese 1/2 hour
b. Morning exercise
c. Eat breakfast
7. Healthy or relatively healthy food only. No fast food or deep fried groceries.
8. Three hours of Japanese study per day
9. NO MONEY SPENT!
10. Blog every day.

Other: Guitar, songwriting, reading, watching movies, etc. are encouraged. Also, I will try to be kind and willing to work hard every day at work. I realize that my negativity can be read by my coworkers, and I need to be a positive person constantly. Easy to say, but difficult to make happen.

Rewards: Chicago's Pizza on Thursday if I fulfill everything up to then. Sloppy Joes on Oct. 7. Short two day trip to Sendai at the end if I can keep it up two whole weeks.

Today has been nice. My second song for Your Neck of the Woods is almost completed, but I have very mixed feelings about it. I need to remember that I'm going to rerecord all of these once I have the album written, so I should just get them down and move forward.

I haven't studied my Japanese yet, but I will very soon. Food has been good, and it has taken my mind off the smoking. I just need to remember that quitting smoking is nothing more than a series of minor victories. I want to say that I'm quitting for good, but I haven't quite gotten there yet.

Well, I'll be back tomorrow with an update. There's so much to write about since last time. I'll be sure to add more to this.