The fast - day one

The fast started easy - a little hunger but not too bad.
The hunger helped me focus, an important aspect of the seven days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, on how I don't want to be reactive; I don't want to judge in the next year.
And more personally: I don't want to be a slave to what people think of me.
Changing your life and how you view it is hard. Deciding who you want to be, how you want to see yourself is even harder.
But it can be done.
Part of that on Monday was returning to Curves. I've been exercising regularly for about six months partly for my own sanity and partly to prepare me for possible deployment to Iraq or elsewhere. But in the last couple weeks with the stress of work mounting I've been slacking off finding it difficult to fit it in between interviews and council/committee meetings. I know that to be truly committed I have to make it a permanent part of my schedule - not just fit it in. So, I will start getting up early and going before work at 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. So, I don't have to stress during the day when my schedule doesn't allow time for the miracle 30 minute workout.
The hunger has also highlighted how hungry I've been for intellectual simulation. It's so easy when you come home exhausted - your brain a scramble - to sit in front of the television and be a vegetable.
I finished China Mieville's Iron Council last night and it felt good. (I prefered his earlier books - Perdido Street Station and Scar to this his latest effort - just incase you care)
I promised myself to tackle the ever growing tower of books on my nightstand. Some are fiction; some are books for work like Mathematics for Journalists or Statistics for Dummies. But all are necessary if I want to continue to grow, learn and understand the world around me.
For now the fast seems to be doing what it was intended to do - helping me clarify who I want to be in the next year and remember that not all people work from a place of light and peace.
Most important I'm not responsible for their actions. I'm only responsible for my own.
Peace.