Week One – I am looking at temperance and Silence and I have A LOT of work to do!

So in week one I wanted to just observe myself with regards to the first two of old Ben’s plan. Wow, what an eye opener! For those who need a refresher on those, here it is.

1. Temperance - Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
2. Silence - Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation

Just some background, I quit drinking regularly about 20 years ago. I say regularly because I have at least one beer per year and sometimes one drink. I can’t say that I do not drink, I do – a very little. So not to drink to elevation was not going to be a problem for me. I instead wanted to look at how much coffee I drink as well as how much tea I drink, maybe to get a caffeine “elevation”

So wow, I realized on day one that just looking at myself and pondering on these was going to be rough. I am, what I would call a fat boy, I need to lose some weight so eating to dullness is a problem for me, or a hobby depending on how you might look at it. The first instance that I really watched myself was Monday at lunch. A friend of mine from work and I went to Sweet Tomato’s, a salad place. I love the salad bar there and I always have 2 of the little 2x2 inch cornbread squares with honey butter – um, um good. So we get there and I, like always, load up my plate like I can’t remember where my last meal came from or where my next one might be. This is an all you can eat joint, I could come back up and get a second plate but NO, I have to load my plate up till it is 2 inches thick. I did only use one scoop of ranch dressing, which most likely offset ANY advantage of eating the roughage.

I am really not sure why I do that, I have pondered it and will continue to ponder the why on that. I can start to make changes though and the next time I go there I will not do that and maybe one little cornbread square instead of two. I also refilled my strawberry lemonade three times, I could easily get one of those and refill with water. Day one and at a salad bar no less and I was aghast, I was eating to dullness and drinking to elevation. It was kind of disheartening but I have to remember I am not striving for perfection, I am merely watching my actions when placed against Ben’s list. I was not doing well but ya know what, if the next time I go I pile it up to 1 ¾ inches high and have 2 strawberry lemonades I will be making progress in bettering myself.

So also on day one I spent my lunch hour “bitchin” about work, I do not believe I said one thing that benefited others or me for that matter. It was all trifling conversation, that is no fault of my lunch date and I in no way blame her, the work environment is frustrating lately. That does not mean that I have to bitch about it, because that will not change anything, dialog with the folks in charge with creative solutions to some of the issues are what will inevitably make the work place turmoil’s subside. I bitched to three other people later that day and after words I scared myself a little bit. My Mom always used to say “if you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say anything at all” she had already learned that silence was a virtue and was instilling that in us when we were kids, not that we understood it at the time. Between that and “what if could go on forever” there were some powerful lessons from my Mom, rest her soul.

I am backing off a bit and am going to spend a couple more weeks looking at Temperance by itself, there is more work to do there than i anticipated.