Selfishness...

Realizing how selfish you are is one of the most humbling experiences a person can have. This is where I am at this morning.

It is one thing to just "give up" something but it is another to focus on replacing that which you gave up with something else. That is a little confusing. I guess what I am trying to say is that this exercise of not spending and not focusing on me and trying to focus on others is a lot harder than I had originally thought.

For me it isn't so much the not spending that bothers me (after all, that extra dessert that I am not having is a good thing!). For me it is difficult to shift my focus to something else, which is part of this 45 day journey.

The first time I experienced this was the birth of our son. It was a huge adjustment to go from doing what I wanted to being on a schedule and meeting the needs of an infant. Now, 15 months later, we have fully adjusted and I can't picture our lives any other way. Adjusting to having an infant to care for didn't happen over night. It was several weeks of trial and error and learning and relearning.

So perhaps that is our lesson for today. The ability to stop being selfish and start having a more outward face will be a process. So here we are, admitting that we are selfish and that we will start to focus on the joy of the journey.