I was going to categorize this entry under "depressed", but I'm not really. I'm just feeling rather bleh, which is funny because that's the kind of blog entry that is supposed to be oh so typical of livejournal angsty goth girls. I shouldn't say that, because I kind of like angsty goth girls (okay, kinda is an understatement).

As I was just saying to someone, today is one of those days when I'm sitting on the computer and it's just click, click, click. Finding nothing interesting. Click, click, click.

I want to pull myself away and do something productive. I'd be out on the job hunt, but I still have this cold that's been kicking my ass. Seriously I think it's the worst cold I've ever had and I wonder if the germs on this planet will eventually win. I bet they do.

Maybe I'll do something that seems sort of productive but is just rather pointless, like clean up the house or rearrange something. I've already considered "thursday" memes, but they all suck (well the photo one doesn't, but I'm not a photographer) so maybe I'll come up with one of my own and pretend that's somehow productive and not pointless.

My word of today: maybe.

Anyone up for wandering to Richmond and going to Tim Horton's this evening? Meh, probably not, you don't want my cold.

Have you ever seen "Defending Your Life"? It's just an okay movie, but it has a great concept at its core: that people reincarnate and whether they become a higher or lesser being is based NOT on good works, karma, etc. but on how many decisions they made based on fear.

That's the best truth I've ever heard. I don't mean the reincarnation part, because I don't have faith in that, but that the worst aspects of our lives come from making decisions based on fear.

Oh sure, other bad things can happen. Accidents, disease, acts of God/nature, "mind that bus. What bus? *splat*", whatever, but the fear decisions are the truly regrettable and avoidable aspects of life that nag us.

Our society teaches us (incorrectly I feel) that fear is an appropriate justification for all sorts of bad decisions. Lies for instance, are often excused by fear: "but I was afraid to lose him". It's been taught to us to be cautious, be fearful. Yet those are the situations that haunt us.

We usually only see the fear in our decisions when all of the options scare us. That's when we can't decide and we finally recognize the fear and it debillitates us. And you know what? I think most of the time we get that way because fear led us down that path in the first place.

When we can recognize our fears (and what causes them) sooner, we won't necessarily get easier decisions, but wouldn't it feel better being stuck deciding because all of the options are good?

I don't think it solves all of the world's problems, but it certainly would help a lot of individuals if they made less decisions based on fear or at least were aware that they often take the options least feared rather than the best options.

Mostly by "we" I mean "me".

Something I've been thinking about a lot lately.

Happy New Year folks. For those that are unaware, today is the first day of the year for the Chinese calendar and it's the Year of the Monkey. I was born in '68 (yep, I'm that old) and that makes me a monkey of sorts, so I'm going to claim this as my year (I'll share a little bit tho *grin*).

And to commemorate this year and how it marks a time of new hope for me, when I have the cash to do so, I'm going to get a tattoo with the "Year of the Monkey" Chinese characters (see inline picture).

Via peechie, here's the Book Meme, the ones that I've read are in bold, although many of those I would gladly re-read because most of the classics I read when I was in elementary and high-school (yep, I was the nerd that only skipped class to go to the library).

1984, George Orwell
The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
Animal Farm, George Orwell
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
The BFG, Roald Dahl
Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
Bleak House, Charles Dickens
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
Catch 22, Joseph Heller
The Catcher In The Rye, JD Salinger
Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky
David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
Dune, Frank Herbert
Emma, Jane Austen
Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
The Godfather, Mario Puzo
Gone With The Wind, Margaret Mitchell
Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire, JK Rowling
Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
His Dark Materials trilogy, Philip Pullman
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, Douglas Adams
The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
Holes, Louis Sachar
I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
Katherine, Anya Seton
The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, CS Lewis
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
The Lord Of The Rings, JRR Tolkien
Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blighton
Magician, Raymond E Feist
The Magus, John Fowles
Matilda, Ronald Dahl
Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
Middlemarch, George Eliot
Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
Mort, Terry Pratchett
Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
On The Road, Jack Kerouac
One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Perfume, Patrick Suskind
Persuasion, Jane Austen
The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
Pride And Prejudice, Jane Austen
The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
The Ragged Trousered Philantrhopists, Robert Tressell
Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier
The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Secret History, Donna Tartt
The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
The Stand, Stephen King
The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
Tess Of The D'urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee
A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
The Twits, Roald Dahl
Ulysses, James Joyce
Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
War And Peace, Leo Tolstoy
Watership Down, Richard Adams
The Wind In The Willows, Kenneth Grahame
Winnie-the-Pooh, AA Milne
The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte

Of this list, the next I'll read is probably "Memoirs Of A Geisha" because jhez loaned it to me and *gasp* I didn't get around to reading it. I think I'll borrow it again.