Day 1: Life 2.0

I've been thinking of this day for some weeks now. For the first time in 20 years I'm not going to work each day. It's quite a change, if I do say so myself, which is something coming from a self-proclaimed change expert. Instead, over the next six months I will be working on my life from the ground up. Not a nip or tuck mind you, but the equivalent of an extreme makeover.

Today is the start of what I hope will be a journey of self-discovery, of transformation. The expectations of my life to this point have been much like an old wool sweater: practical, dependable, fulfilling of expectations and perhaps even somewhat elegant in its predictability and function. Something from a bygone era strangely antiquated and archaic and utterly out of place.

But now I find the uncomfortable scratchiness and musty smell belies some deeper dissatisfaction that I need to more fully understand. I feel it's time to set aside the old sweater and don something that's more me, or at least something that will enable "me" to emerge. (Whether that's a Hawaiian shirt or not remains to be seen.) It is clearly time to take charge of my own metaphorical wardrobe.

Anxiety over external expectations has displaced my own sense of direction and purpose, and that's exactly what I'm looking to restore. I'm not naive enough to believe I can live a life devoid of external pressures and requirements, but I do hope that I can restore my own motivations and goals to a place of central importance and strength in my life. To once again pursue those things which restore energy rather than merely consume it. It is time for me to establish tomorrow as something to look look forward to with a sense of hope and promise, not with a feeling of grim determination or abject resignation.

So this morning, this new day, I recall the words from that breakfast cereal jingle so many years ago: "Today is the first day of the rest of your life." And while I'm probably screwing myself by not starting it with a big bowl of Total, here goes nothing. Or rather, I firmly believe, something...