Return to Virtues

I was invited to participate in an experiment that an old friend from high school is conducting. He has written a manuscript and is in the process of getting it published, but along the way is testing his theories. I could explain all the history, but if you're interested, you can find out more info at return to virtues.

My instructions for March:

"The month of March is the month of Integrity. What does that mean? It means that this month you will have an intense focus on your personal integrity. As I mentioned before, I would love everyone to set a personal goal for the month regarding integrity.

Here are a few ideas of possible goals you could make to enhance your integrity:

-follow through on 100% of your commitments
-be truthful in everything you say to others
-set a diet goal, be honest in following it
-set an exercise goal, and be honest with your self in accomplishing it

These are just a few ideas, but I would recommend you pick something that is important to you, and something that doesn't come naturally. You want to try to do something more than you normally do, outside of your comfort zone."

I had several thoughts on this topic and how I can apply it more fully in my life. What I decided on does not necessarily correlate directly with integrity, but implementing it will. My household and, on occasion, my children have been neglected due to my intense concentration on my computer screen. The internet is a fabulous invention, one I can not get enough of sometimes. It is completely ironic that there are so many ways to keep in touch and network online and all of them can be done while having no direct contact with an actual person. Anyway, I was finding myself saying, "just a minute," one too many times when my children were beckoning because I had to finish composing one more email, or read one more article or check the status of one more thing... Denten even started commenting that the computer is the first thing I go for in the morning. I feel like lots of stuff I do on the computer is important, but lots is completely wasted time.

Thus the goal... I'm limiting the time I'm on the computer while all of my children are awake. It's so easy to sit down to do one thing while they're all playing well and before I know it I'm sucked into five projects and they're getting restless and my attention is not where it needs to be. So, I've set parameters for myself and it's kinda hard. Yesterday I got quite a bit done as I had to keep myself from wandering back over to my desk. The guest room bed has been without sheets since lindsay left weeks ago and it is finally put back together. In fact, most of the bedding in the house got changed. All the kids rooms were picked up, organized and vacuumed. Whadda ya know... there is actually time to keep my house clean when I'm not in front of the computer all day!

Anyway, there it is, out there for the world to judge... my weakness and folly. So how, you ask, am I writing this post at 10:00 a.m.? Well, it just so happens two of the three are sleeping and I have a 30 minute computer window. Consider yourselves lucky that I chose to spend it explaining all this nonsense! Oh, and in case it needs explaining, integrity comes in seeing as no one is here to monitor my computer usage.. it's all on me. And seeing as I have to report back to Adrian, I gotta stick with it. Thanks, Mr. Dayton. You just may make a better person out of me yet!