A Better Choice

Today the kids were all over the place.

One was working all day, one went to Jones Beach with a friend, one went to a friend’s house, one had a friend come to our house, and one is going to the movies with a friend.

And around 4:00 I realized I hadn’t really eaten and I was going to be dropping off and picking up kids and driving all over town for another two hours.

I had a couple errands to run in that two hour window, and I had to stop in CVS.

While I was in there I decided I’d grab something to eat. I was starting to feel a little shaky.

I walked down the aisles with the food and boy did I want the chocolate covered pretzels. And the PEANUT BUTTER covered pretzels.

And anything else that had chocolate. Or peanut butter. Or both.

I grabbed the bag off the hook.

I rationalized eating a bag full of garbage that I didn’t plan to eat earlier in the day, even though I’m trying to lose weight.

Since I hadn’t planned well and now I was clearly close to death NOTHING WAS OFF LIMITS.

It’s okay.

Just this one time. 

You deserve it.

You can start over tomorrow.

I put the bag back.

F*ck that.

I definitely needed to eat something, but I didn’t have to go from one extreme to another.

I could find a better choice.

I didn’t have to do it perfectly.

I’ve spent a lot of my life living in extremes.

All or nothing.

Do it perfectly or don’t do it at all.

This way of thinking is not working for me.

It stops me from reaching my goals the minute I fuck up.

So I’m really trying to focus on doing better.

That’s it.

That’s my only goal.

So I put the Reese’s pretzels back on the hook.

What was a better choice?

Not the perfect choice. Not the best choice.

Just a better one.

I grabbed this:

They aren’t perfect.

They aren’t the best.

But they are better than the diabetes in a bag I went for first.

Although I didn’t do today perfectly, I also didn’t throw it all down the drain like I have so many times in the past.

That’s progress, which is really my biggest goal.

Today I made progress.

And ultimately, since the goal was accomplished, I guess today ended up being pretty perfect after all.

Here’s to doing a little bit better every day.