Physical - I want to be the fit kind of 40-year-old man. The well-built, healthy kind, who clearly looks after himself. I want to halt the slide into middle-aged spread that I've been allowing to happen in the last few years. I want to be seen as someone who makes an effort.
To achieve this, the things I need to do are:
Stop eating the kind of junk that I eat all too often and set about a healthier diet designed to provide the nutrition I need more efficiently.
Start a serious and sensible exercise routine. Organise this properly, and taking things like my asthma into account.
Keep up this serious and sensible exercise routine.
Don't go berserk and allow myself no treats at all, but make sure they are spread out and compensated for by exercise.
Spiritual - I want to be more in tune with the world and the people around me. I want to have a sense of balance, so that I'm not constantly swinging from one emotional extreme to the other. I want to learn to relax, so that I'm not so wearing to be around. I want the people in my life to feel relaxed around me, not made tense by uncertainty about my reactions.
To achieve this, the things I need to do are:
Take time over things; stop feeling the need to leap directly in and *do*. Take a moment to think, and *feel*.
Deal with my anger; address the causes of the chronic anger that underlies much of my life. Accept that there are issues, especially from my childhood, that have to be resolved if I stand any chance of being this person I want to be, and having accepted them, do something about them.
Really find methods to relax me - do more than just read a book on meditation and never finish it. Find mental exercises, or techniques, or something, that can help me to find a bit of inner calm.
Generally - have a better sense of myself as an individual, which means being open to my own needs, and stopping assuming I'm in the wrong, but at the same time be more aware of the impact of what I do on those around me.
10th September 2001