Striped leopards

The old adage, a leopard doesn't change his spots, is, as those things always are, grounded in reality.

A good friend and I had a talk when I conceived my idea of the yearlong walkabout I will be embarking on in a few days. We talked about how hard it is to make real, deep change to one's self. It's easy to shuffle the externals--maybe a leopard can rearrange his spots--but MUCH harder to change those things about us that consistently get in our way of accomplishing the things we say are important to us.

I do believe in the power of changing the externals to make it a little easier to make those other changes. It's hard to stick to a weight loss program with a refrigerator/pantry full of ice cream and cookies and hanging too much with friends who never exercise and have an ongoing love affair with 'ritas and queso. In fact this premise is fundamental to my whole experiment.

I think the environmental changes give you an extra boost to start. Then, no doubt about it, the HEAVY lifting begins.

I'm also a big believer in having people around you to support you in those changes. And, finding people who have made the changes is always inspiring. All of these things are helpful but not sufficient.

There are a lot of resources out there about how to make these kinds of changes. Keeping focus is a big issue for me because there are SO many interesting things and people out there to play with.

For example, I find the discipline of writing in this blog and my journal about my ongoing relationship/reaction with the changes I'm making helps bring me back into focus. Otherwise, the water is flowing very swiftly beneath my bridge :) and I could be swept downstream to new ideas before I realize what has happened.

It will be interesting to see if this leopard can lose at least a few spots and add some tiger stripes over the next year :)