The Sunday Experience.

Sunday is a time to attend your place of worship, get spiritually recharged for the week,  watch your fave life time movies and OWN series, catch up on recorded dvrs, and deep condition/retwist your hair for our natural girls. This week is slightly different. January 27th marks the end of the first month for the new year. Some set new year resolutions, made vows to change bad habits, increase good habits, and some just decided to go with the flow. What ever happens, happens.

The first month of a new year can easily create or bring about anxiety and depression. Lets explore one of the options how. If you are a concerned citizen, chances are you have a face book or a twitter account, (follow me on twitter on my personal account,  @lamillionair, lol)  All of your face book and twitter "friends" publicly posting their resolutions and business ideas and photos of new relationships, new cars, new friends, etc. Unless you know your "friend" personally, you have no way of knowing whose real or fake about the business they share.. but that doesn't stop you from feeling left out. Now you are grinding and working overtime in order to keep up with the real and the fakes.

In this edition of the "Sunday Experience" my goal is to encourage you that you have 11 more months to loose those extra pounds, start that business, buy your new house or car, and change those negative habits. Do not let the illusions of the success of others pressure you into a change you are not ready for and neglect yourself from enjoying life today. No, this is not a pass to be lazy, we all have a purpose in life. This is just to encourage you not to become in a rush, rut, or routine or start feeling down and out on yourself because January has come and gone but you have not made much progress since December.

Society trains us to think that "life is short." Life can be short if you are always living for tomorrow and refusing to enjoy the 24 hours that you were blessed with today. The bible states in Psalm 91:16 that "with long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation."  Proverbs 10:27 states that "the fear of the LORD prolongeth days; but the years of the wicked shall be shortened."  So this lets me know (1) God desires us to live a long life. (2) Fear God and he will show us the way to salvation which will add to our days.

 Here are a few pointers that can help you enjoy your long life:

                1. Take time to celebrate yourself.
How often you should celebrate yourself depends on you; daily, weekly, monthly, you decide. Do not wait until the perfect scheduling to gather all your friends to your favorite restaurant to celebrate your accomplishment. There will never be a perfect time to accommodate all your cousins, coworkers, siblings, parents, etc to come together for a dinner. In the meantime, the clock is still ticking so set aside a time to celebrate yourself in a no guilt atmosphere.

                2. Detox from social media.
Social media can increase or decrease your self esteem. If you feel as if you currently have nothing exciting going on in your life, scrolling through status all day checking out the over exaggerated happenings of your friends, you may find yourself feeling some type of way. If this occur, shut down the Internet and find a reason to celebrate yourself. The fact that you are alive is always a reason to celebrate. Don't have enough money to go to your favorite restaurant or attend a movie? Then rent a red box  dvd and prepare your favorite meal at home. Celebrations do not have to be expensive. If you are celebrating yourself, the only person to impress is yourself. Do what is within your means.

             3. Assign each hour a priority.
Create a to do list. Include things that you don't normally do. This maybe reading your bible for 30 minutes a day, researching a particular topic, exercising, volunteering at a shelter, cleaning a stubborn stain out your carpet, whatever. Assigning each hour a priority makes you feel as if no time is wasted. You have accomplished all the task for that day that was important to YOU. This also creates another reason to celebrate you.

As you enter this last week of the first month of  2013, meditate on this scripture:
Ecclesiastes 7:8 "Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof: and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit" The only race you should be running is the race against yourself. Determine your purpose, set small reasonable goals, if you desire...share that goal with someone who is honest enough to hold you accountable, do not compare yourself to others, aquire the help of a mentor or role model if needed, then celebrate yourself upon the completion of each goal. Confess to yourself that life is long and live on purpose.