Ten Overrused Cliches/Proverbs/Platitudes By Which I Will Attempt To Live My Life

10. "Live every day like it's your last." Wise words, especially for someone who is currently unemployed and struggling to retain hope that she won't remain so for the entire upcoming school year. It's easy to get wrapped up in the issues that cause you the most stress and concern, but I will attempt to make every day...every monotonous, just-like-the-last day, important and significant for some reason. I will make each day count.

9. "Do unto others as you'd have done to you." I'm not at all a nasty person by nature, but I've noticed I've become unusually snarky and un-Christian in my comments regarding strangers and celebrities lately. It's not in the big things, but the little ones, like blaring my horn at the guy who cut me off - twice - while I was on my way home from the gym today. Upon further thought, I figured out the guy was probably unfamiliar with the area and confused about where he was going (judging by his slow speed). Sure, he was in the wrong for his less-than-stellar driving skills, but my blaring the horn didn't help him at all, did it? And it didn't help me one iota, either. If he was lost and confused, I just made everything worse. And in his shoes, I wouldn't have appreciated the hair-raising blare of my horn.

8. "Pick your battles." My husband and I are perfectly matched in that we're very similar in most ways, and the ways in which we differ, we create a nice, workable balance. We both talk louder when we debate issues. We're both creative and extroverted. We both love being outdoors as much as we love being indoors. We both like a wide range of movies and music. However, he likes cooking more than I do - which is great, because he cooks and then I clean the kitchen by my own standards (which rank on a totally separate scale than his). He gets easily heated, I remain calm. He's a planner (by profession and otherwise) and I'm flexible and open. He's an optimist, I'm a pragmatist. However, we have one thing very unfortunately in common - we're as stubborn as a pair of donkeys (mules are just too small to fit this analogy). We don't argue often, but we can have 5-10 minute spats on things that don't deserve nearly the amount of significance we grant them - namely things like what to have for dinner, how many WW points are in a food item, and what movie to go see. And for what? Neither of us ever wins...we both have our say until we feel like crap for how we mouthed off and inevitably apologize. By following the advice in the above-mentioned platitude, we could spend a lot less time sparring over food and more time consuming it. PS - I'm usually right about the WW points; he underestimates. ;-)

7. "What's meant to be will be." I say this a lot in regards to the job issue (or more specifically, someone else getting one that I wanted), but only recently have I begun to see the truth in it. Looking back on my life, I can't think of a single event or decision or circumstance that I would change if given the chance, even though many times I've been disappointed about the outcome of things immediately after they've happened. In the end, things really do seem to have a way of working themselves out, and I just have to keep that in mind as I truck my way through applications that harbor no responses and interviews that harbor no job offers.

6. "The best things in life aren't things." It's true. The best things in life are as follows: love, family, friendship, God, sunshine, cats, dogs, discounts, and sushi. Well, okay. SOME of the best things are things.

5. "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." Keep it in your head and smile wickedly to yourself. When someone asks what's up with you, say you're just gassy.

4. "Make new friends, but keep the old." I've been fostering a lot of great new friendships in recent months, which is great! Yay me! I can't, though, fully relish in the feeling of my posse growing, because of one thing. I'm horrible - HORRIBLE - at keeping touch with people who are far away, since I'm not much of a phone or e-mail person when it's not for business purposes. I'd rather sit face to face and engage in conversations complete with eye contact, double entendres, hand-talking, and roaring laughter than tap out a mindless, one-sided e-mail. But, um, duh. Who wouldn't? How selfish of me. Furthermore, having grown up and spent 25 years roughly 800 miles from where I am now, I need to get it through my thick skull that the people who I care about, who care about me, want to hear from me and want whatever contact they can get from me, electronic or otherwise. All it takes is a few months of no phone calls, no cards, no-emails to make most people feel as if you don't care. I don't want to let any old friendships fall by the wayside. If you're reading this - and you know who you are - I do care. I promise.

3. "You never know what you can do until you try." This deals mainly with my newly acquired fitness pursuits. I am in the best shape of my life, and doing things I never thought physically possible. Yet I still hold stubbornly onto one irrational fear - running. I am terrified, to death, of running. I jog for shreds of time, I elliptical until my legs feel ready to detach from my hips, and I do just about everything else. Why am I so scared to run? Beats me, but I better figure it out before August 21st, the date of my first 5K. My goal? Run the whole thing...no walking or jogging. It's lofty, I know, but I feel the only way to get over my fear is to tackle it head on (oh look! Another platitude!). Plus, it'll make great practice for the full marathon I've already committed to running in Tennessee next April. I start training for the 5K after our camping trip. Wish me luck. :)

2. "No regrets." This one is tough for me, especially the part of me who likes to overanalyze every detail, each possibility, sucking every ounce of spontaneous enjoyment out of each decision until the whole thing lays limp and deflated in my memory. I regret drinking because it leads to hangovers. I regret pizza and cheeseburgers because they lead to gas and weight gain. I regret spending money because it (curiously) leads to having less. But for what? I don't ever drink enough to do something totally crazy, like grab the ass of an old man. I don't eat enough pizza or cheeseburgers to make much of a difference on the scale the next day. And as for spending money, Jim says I'm a dream wife (i.e. an afternoon spent strolling all of my favorite stores at Eastwood Towne Center and I leave with only a $25 pair of clearance capri pants from J. Crew that coordinate well with most everything in my clearance-and-outlet-filled closet). What's the point of regret? It defeats the purpose of making fun, impulsive and often selfish decisions - which I firmly believe everyone should do once in awhile.

1. TIE: "Never put off until tomorrow what can be done today"/"Actions speak louder than words." Part 2 is in regards to entries 10-2. None of the fluffy words and fun little anecdotes matter if I don't put the thoughts into action. Which I fully intend to. Starting tomorrow.