question each expenditure of time and/or money, as often as possible, asking myself, "Does this choice make me closer to or more distant from who and what I want to be?"

This is a goal I can never mark as done and I will fail at it a lot, but if this causes me to make even one good decision regarding my time/money instead of a bad one then it has served its purpose.

i started this in 2009 and am living much more in the present- more consciously. i want to do it more and more of the time.

It is also soo helpful to ask how much you’ve been impacted by such a consumer-driven culture…
A good friend (a psychologist) recently analyzed consumerism as an real addiction just like any other drug. The argument being that we often purchase things to fulfill some way off promise (that doesn’t get fulfilled)... like buying the outfit because we will look oh-so-sexy…
or the candle or furniture because it will bring “such an incredible sense of peace”.. and the promises continue.
But will we really ever realize that we should not be a slave to all of the things that we can go out there are buy?
Think about it!

that I adopted it as one of my goals.

This entry is a place for me and others to post comments.

I have more urgent priorities right now.

Sounds like fun. I actually will ask myself this question out loud.

The easy way I found to do this was to shell out 15 bucks and get a picture of my house put on my bank card. Now, whenever I go to buy something, I look at the house and think “what will this really achieve in the long run?? Nothing, thats what…

It’s the answering, or how I sometimes respond to the answering, that is a bit more problematical.

When I am spending time or money on something that DOESN’T take me closer to whom I want to be, and I am conscious of that but determined to do that anyway, even knowing this… well… where’s that at? I suppose that’s the Part 2 of this goal… something like:

”... and, when the answer is ‘More distant’ and I choose not to act on it, ask myself “Why?” “

I wander aimlessly around my life, blind most of the time. Time to stop that. If I don’t, I’m going to miss the rest of my life as well. Who can I be? How many people/things can I see and touch and know? If I pay attention.

Wise in terms of doing income-generating work, instead of postponing it and angsting myself like crazy.