Reduce, reuse, reset!

Ah, the magic of the reset button.

And yes, that is a picture of MY Nintendo, which is still in good working order. Jealous? I know.

My perfectionism started at a very early age. Maybe it's just us "OCD" types who utilized the old skool Nintendo reset button regulary during game play. For me, it was missing the "easy" levels of Duck Hunt. Or missing that first "big" in Super Mario Brothers. Or as I got progressively more skilled, it was missing the fireworks at the end of a level.

There I would sit, indian style in my pjs, on the floor in front of the tv; just at the edge of an arm's stretched out reach to that magical button. It's no wonder I did better on that PE test than the others (you know, the one with the wooden box where you reach and see how many centimeters you can stretch?). Sometimes I would just be playing for fun and be embarassed at the thought of such a low score. Other times, I would actually try for what, in my opinion, was a perfect score. Miss a coin? Reset. Miss a duck? Reset. Get shrunk down? Reset. Get 9 coins out of a question mark box instead of 10? You get the idea.

It really is unfortunate that there's no such obvious reset button in life.

But lately I've been thinking a lot about my weight, and my quest to lose it. And my 6-week focus character traits, and my bad blog habits, and something occurred to me. I have a reset button! A button that is within reaching distance every morning when I wake up. Yep, you know where I'm headed. But it's not that the alarm clock holds some mystical power of ctrl-zness... it's that each and every single day is new. It's better than theatre, it's less rehearsed and less repeated. It's actually a brand new something every single time I wake up.

So a new chance to be a better Christian. A new chance to work out, or eat right, or write more. A new chance to be on time, to be kind to my husband and friends, to work with my dog on her bad habits, to be patient, to call that friend who I haven't talked to in a while. And that does not have anything at all whatsoever to do with how I live today.

I know it's cliché, but each day I get this gift, the only thing it's missing is some pretty printed paper and a bow. It's mine to do with what I choose, and I'm going to take it.

Step aside little perfectionist-nerd-kid inside of me, you're going to have to stop trying to get the perfect score each day. It's just not going to happen. But don't worry, sometimes, if you hit it right, you might just see the fireworks.