“The unfortunate thing about this world is that good habits are so much easier to give up than bad ones.”  ~Somerset Maugham

Early on in my positivity quest I learned the power of daily habits. Our thoughts and words lead our daily actions and our actions repeated become the habits, which define not only our character but our destiny. The promise I made to myself to live consciously and to report publicly my ability to find a positive relationship to my life, my relationships and my work became over time the guiding behavior of my days.

Even when I would fall asleep with my hands on the keyboard in keeping the commitment, I believed that the work of writing something that would inspire me to think correctly about my days was more worthwhile even than sleep. So it was with a little bit of resistance that I gave up the daily writing to create the space to do other writing and thinking that was often pushed aside for this work.

I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised how quickly a habit that requires so much commitment can fall away. Instead of replacing that daily writing time with the other projects that I wanted to get to, it was replaced by other busy-ness. Instead of transforming the anxiety and stress of recent workplace drama, the empty space of not writing has allowed me to re-assimilate my old bad habits of pre-occupation.

I remember reading once that life shrinks or expands to what we give it and expect from our selves. Although there has been a little relief of not having to produce during this month-long hiatus, the relief is equal to a distance that has grown in relationship to my positivity.  I am more needy and have less resolve as I stew in my own sauce, which goes unchecked now for days at a time. It turns out that doing less doesn’t actually create the space to do more.

I remember fearing that I would not be able to maintain my positive growth without the practices I had come to rely on for the last year, and after reading about Benjamin Franklin’s program of self-improvement, which in fact was continuous from the time he started it, I am hereby re-instituting my own program of continuous positive relationships.

Welcome to the renewed daily positivity quest, which will be making its way into a book by 2012 called Life that Works- a guide to thriving in love and work. I welcome your voice to this work that will again be daily and thank you for your companionship towards making each day really count.