life giving

Creativity is how I live. How I get through a day. How I manage life. When I don't exercise my creative mind, I become dull, tired, restless. Someone told me recently that after a day is over, I should ask myself "What in my day was life giving?" and "What in my day was life draining?"

I have two answers for today concerning the latter. Facebook and T.V. Facebook can offer a connection with friends, but once stared at for longer than ten minutes looking through friends of friends Facebook albums for no apparent reason, I call that life draining. Television can offer an escape, but also cause lethargy and possibly apathy. Despite the good TV can sometimes prompt, it is mostly life draining.

What is life giving? For me, creativity, writing, doing something well. If I'm using the right side of my brain, I usually have a more productive, happy day. Eating a good meal, talking with friends and making things are life giving to me. So tonight, when my brain was tired and my body was exhausted, I sat down to eat dinner, opened to Facebook and my eyes glazed over. My roommate turned on House and after being sucked into two episodes, I wanted to go to bed. Life draining. Entertaining, but very life draining.

Now, obviously for others this is not the case and the fact that I'm still getting over a cold and overwhelmed with homework could contribute to me being tired, but the fact is this is what happens when I allow myself to be sucked into life draining activities, I feel the effects. So as decided a week ago, TV is off limits — a part of my 31 days of ideal living. I obviously ruined my streak of following my guidelines and was tempted to not admit I had slipped up on here, but in all honesty, where else will my accountability be and I want to be honest about my experience. So now you know and with that, finally, I will post my guidelines for 31 days of ideal living tomorrow.

Now, I'm off to find a creative outlet and spark some neurons.