Reflection

India is in the middle of a transformation and has been for years. The leaders are trying to get the community to respect the places they travel, visit and live, basically encouraging them to not litter or urinate whenever or wherever. I learned very early on during my visit, with so many people and a poor waste management system, there is just little discipline to keep some areas clean. Mountains and mountains of trash line some of the streets.

I came across a sign many times visiting one of the cities that stated the following: “Your habits are a reflection of you, clean up and pick up after yourself.”  It reminded me of my mom when we were growing up, always reminding us to take care of our belongings, put things back where they belong, clean up after yourself and most importantly, establish habits that you are proud of.

Sometimes the simple truths are what get us back to where we belong. I like to think you or I are not littering the streets but are our habits in check? Are we picking up after ourselves, really taking care of ourselves? Is how we are living our life each day, each of our daily habits, a reflection of ourselves we want to send out to the universe?

A habit I have lost track of that I need to bring back is reading before bed without tv. You see, sometimes the daily pressures are exhausting and instead of nurturing my mind, I pollute it by lying in bed, staring at the TV until I fall asleep, and not really feeling refreshed in the morning. The problem is my mind can’t really relax with all that noise in the background and therefore I am never refreshed and then repeat the same bad habit day after day.

You might be thinking, you just told me there is trash all over the streets in India, people are encouraged to clean up after themselves and you are talking about watching TV before bed? Yes, I know, I’m a spoiled girl dealing with first world problems. But sometimes you have to breakdown a message and receive it as your mind needs.  For me, it is cleaning up some unwanted habits and course correcting.

It never hurts to do this reflection every so often, you might be surprised what you need to stop doing and start doing in order to create the reflection that makes you proud.