New Year's Resolution and the Art of Skipping

2013 Came rolling in under the blanket of some sort of ridiculous flu strain that hammered our household and still continues to linger here on January 30th. I was ready for the new year and by New Year I mean christmas is over, lets get to spring weather. For New Years Eve, Azsure and I decided it would be fun to do a Forbidden Foods Night. Basically, we would go to the grocery store and buy a bunch of stuff that we used to love before we were healthy food nuts,(read fat. big and fat) and enjoy the preservative laden, trans-fatty goodness. We landed on a bunch of frozen TGI Friday Appetizers like potato skins and spinach dip and chicken wings. Here's a tip for everyone. That stuff is gross. Really gross. If you have been eating a generally boxed food free diet, when you reintroduce it your body will rebel. I felt pretty nasty afterward but we made it awake until the Eastern time zone new year which was good enough.

I normally dont make resolutions, per se, but have goals for the year which include some sort of growth or achievement. This year, I made a few related to spiritual growth. I have been in a spiritual search mode lately and a questioning one at that. I decided to attempt to look at things from a distance and question the possibilities of how and why I approach things the way I do. So I landed at the ideas that you see in the picture to the left and wrote them down, snapped a pic and put it my phone lock page so that when I pull out my phone, I see the list.

The basics of the resolution are to search out things that are good for my soul and leave things that are not good for my soul. Pretty simple right? Maybe? I don't know. I've been having problems with the letting go of things that are bad for my soul. Politics and ego are on the list and those are both tough. I'm an egomaniacal narcissist like most other humans and as far as the politics goes, everyone seems to have gone crazy and I find it hard to stay out of the pointing out that they are crazy. So, pretty much, I have been focusing on the things that are good for my soul. Listening to music, listing to things that make me laugh, saying "hi" to random people and smiling a lot. It's been very good for me and apparently good for my soul. I've been investigating things that I wonder about like buddhism and interesting space stuff like the Apophis asteroid. The asteroid itself isn't really good for my soul but the knowledge is. I've been consciously attempting to open myself up to the possibilities of just about everything in order just be happier.

Enter the skipping.

Lately, I have been noticing that Soijer skips everywhere. In noticing it, I realize that she has always done this. Any time there is distance to cover, she skips it. Kids like to skip. No big secret. What I have been noticing lately is the joy she seems to be experiencing merely by skipping. Yeah, you can see where this is going. I think to myself "hmmm....why not? Why not try some skipping and see where it takes me." I'm not really a stranger to doing odd things out in public. Once, years ago, when I was in a strange phase of doing the robot dance, a woman cut in front of me at the grocery store to reach a Hot Pocket and I robot danced at her in a threatening fashion. That being said, I am a little more self conscious around other people these days. Then it dawned on me. This little exercise could provide a "good for my soul" experience while at the same time allowing me to let go of my ego which is in the "bad for my soul" category. A Two-fer.

Now, it is one thing to skip through a parking lot with your 5 year old daughter.oh...look at that dad with his little girl. how sweet! It is quite another for a grown man to skip any measure of distance, Someone better call some sort of authority. Hence the aforementioned letting go of ego two-fer. Well, growth comes at a price so when I was a Meijer the other night getting some treats for Azsure and I, my opportunity presented it self. A toe in the water, if you will. It was dark so I had a little cover. I got out of the car, talked myself into it, and skipped, like a happy little schoolgirl, a good 50 meters to the door. A few people kind of looked at me and I did get an obvious "what the f*$k is this a$$hole doing" from one guy, but I really didn't care. It was hilarious. I even laughed out loud a little. There was joy. A decent amount of it. I don't know if it came from the skip itself or if it was the feeling that I pulled some sort of trick on everybody. It may have just been the look on that one guy's face. Either way, It was joyful and really fun. I'll probably do it some more because, regardless of what the actual act consisted of, it brought to the front things that are good for me.

I should assure everybody (My lovely wife) that I am not really going crazy or having a mid life crisis. I'm just approaching things a little differently. I literally woke up one day with a huge "why?" epiphany. Why is this? Why should I do that? It brought a large amount of understanding to me regarding the kids who ask why way too many times. I need to be willing to answer those questions and be ready to encourage them to try to find the answers too. I need to join with them, not just be the answer man or say "because I said so". I need to explore the possibilities with them.

That will be better for all of our souls.