Bitter or Better?

One of the things that the speaker at the conference on Saturday mentioned was how everything we say, everything we do, the people we spend our time with, the texts we send, EVERYTHING either makes us Bitter or Better. I found that thought to be very profound. It is so true!

She mentioned how she avoids watching the news too much because it will just drain you. How true is that? Watching the news can just depress me within 5 minutes.

What about the people you spend your time with? Do they make you bitter or better? We've all had those friends who just suck the life force out of us. Shoot, at one time or another, we've probably all been that friend sucking the life force. LOL. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying abandon your friends who have problems, but be careful. Are they taking way more than they give? Sometimes a friendship can be unhealthily lopsided.

What does all this have to do with getting out of debt? Well, when you are struggling with debt, it's easy to feel bitter. It's easy to let yourself sink into that pit of feeling sorry for yourself. That "Why me?" attitude. Trust me, I know, I do it all the time. LOL. How instead can I be better? I am not sure yet. Part of me thinks that I just need to get angry enough with the debt. Or maybe a better word is determined. Instead of feeling that there is no way out of this hole, maybe it's time to JUST DO IT! Rather than focusing on the whole number, focus on one area at a time. When you need to do a big job, looking at the whole thing can scare you and paralyze you into doing nothing. So how do you deal with that? Well, you just start. You pick one thing and just do it! Then you go on to the next. And just do it. Flylady teaches people that they can do anything for 15 minutes at a time. When I'm feeling overwhelmed and paralyzed on a task, I set a timer for 15 minutes and just do something! That often motivates me to do more. Dave Ramsey teaches us about Baby Steps, just taking one step at a time. So instead of looking at the whole number, we need to be looking at one step at a time.

So today, I choose to be BETTER rather than BITTER. What do you choose?

Updates

A friend and I went to Tulsa to a child care conference this weekend. We left Friday evening and spent the night, then went to the conference yesterday. It had been more than a year since I'd gone on an overnight trip for a child care conference and it was much needed and appreciated. I had a nasty cold last week and was really hoping that I would feel better so I could enjoy it. I felt so bad that I stayed home from a club meeting on Tuesday night. Now if you know me, you know how hard it is for me to stay home from a meeting, NO matter how bad I feel, so that gives you some insight into how I was feeling. Anyway, by Thursday I felt some better and by Friday I felt almost 100%. Yesterday and today, I feel great!

A bit of a brag on myself. 3 weeks ago tomorrow, I got up and started exercising. For the last 3 weeks, I've exercised 6 days a week, taking only one weekend day off. Even this past week when I was so sick, I got up and exercised each day. It was hard, but somehow I managed it.

We had our second Financial Peace University class last week, the third one (the budget one) is tonight. Something I've been thinking about alot since the first week is something Dave says: "It is as you will it". Now obviously, not everything is going to work out perfectly all the time, but I think if we can really believe that we can do this, we really can. Or God can do it through us.

Hopefully this week I will do better at updating this blog. I have some ideas for posts that I want to do, so I'm going to do my best!