~Birthday Resolution

Originally posted 16 Nov 2017

I really think that it’s been a good 10-15 years since I’ve made a real New Year’s resolution. I really just didn’t see the point, and honestly, I still don’t. To me, it’s like Valentine’s day, you know what I mean… The whole “why treat your significant other special one day a year instead of the entire year” thing (I’ll probably post about this on Valentine’s Day… Wait, no… Probably not). Yea, I just never got New Year’s resolutions, especially since they usually only last for the month of January… If that. On top of that, why January first? Why not make a resolution on YOUR new year?

Speaking of which, I also never understood wishing someone a Happy Birthday. Never, not even as a child… You didn’t do anything but live, we should be wishing your parent(s) Happy Birthday, you know, because they made you. Ok, I got off track. If anything, we should have birthday resolutions. Again, I’m not a resolution guy, so don’t go thinking that I’m going to make one in this post. However, I do realize that there are things in my life that I have complete control of and would like to put more of a conscious effort into working on.

The biggest thing kinda ties into the title of my blog, “Don’t talk about it, be about it”. Now, this isn’t completely what I mean when I say that line, but part of it involves taking your own advice. Follow me here, imagine that the person that you see in the mirror could talk back to you. What would they say? If you asked them for advice what would they tell you? So often we end up giving our friends advice and getting upset when they don’t follow it, but how often do you take that empathetic step and think about whether or not you would also be able to execute that task?

I talked about making more of a conscious effort to take my own advice last year, but didn’t really make it happen. Honestly, I’m not sure if I can make it happen this year either, It’s kind of a big deal. For the rest of my years my goal will most likely be to take my own advice. Hopefully I do better with that this year than I did last year… I mean, it’s not like I could do any worse (God, please don’t take this as a challenge).

Oh yeah… Did I mention that today is my birthday? I was born on a Saturday. Um, sometime during the day, or afternoon, or evening on Saturday. You know how most families know the exact time when their baby was born? I got “my water broke while I was watching Soul Train”. If you have to ask what Soul Train is you are too young to read this blog, thank you, good day!

 

Until next time, Happy Birthday Mom & Dad!

P.S. My son’s birthday is a couple of days before mine. While training for my last deployment I was stuck in the desert in California with no cell phone service, luckily we made a trip to a range where I got one bar and was able to call and talk to my son on his birthday. It REALLY brought up my moral, and REALLY brought it down at the same time. I got really home sick. I guess the guys saw this and decided to do something special for my birthday. They surprised me with a tray full of cake, a pillow, and a magazine. I can’t put into words how deeply this touched me, and how funny it all was at the same time.

P.P.S. Yes, there will be a Soul Train Line at my wedding, deal with it!