25 September 2009

My Own Masterpiece

It's been a long and tough week... all of the kids have had a stomach virus. The H1N1 flu is rampant in Austin right now. I'm sure we are all going to get it, but when we do, I want the kids to be healthy, so their immune system is strong. So, we've stayed home both to prevent the spread of our stomach virus and to prevent catching the flu while we are already sick.

Anyway... I've been thinking about something for a couple of weeks and I've been wanting to write a blog about. This week of staying in has allowed me some time to get to the pile of house projects and now this blog post.

I was sitting in church a couple of weeks ago, listening to the sermon. I don't remember exactly what it was about, but it got me thinking about how much I'm enjoying taking 30 minutes a week or so and reflecting on my direction in life and self improvement. I started to look around the room at all the different faces there. There was one woman that struck me. She is an older woman that I haven't met. She was singing in the choir and she was so happy! She was very expressive and enthusiastically singing with her whole body. She made me smile.

At that moment I had a new thought about aging. If everybody is spending 30 minutes or more each week working on self improvement, then by the time they are "old", they must be exactly the people they want to be. A product of their lives work. Their own masterpiece.

This new perspective has made me want to spend some time (hypothetically of course, my kids need my time right now) getting to know some of these people. I want to know which characteristics they have developed, what is important to them and why. I feel excited about the person I can become in my life. If I work hard at being a better person (whatever I think that means at the time), each week. Then maybe one day I will be my own masterpiece.

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