Quotable Friday

Today's topic: Change

"Grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, the courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know it's me." - Author Unknown

"The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them." - George Bernard Shaw

Those quotes jumped out at me today. Over on Roni's Weigh this week, the Question of the Week was "Do your friends and family help or hurt your efforts?" Many people commented about understanding their close family's or friend's bewilderment and sometimes resistance, because "I'm the one who's changing, not him/her/them."

Oddly enough, I was on the flip side of that earlier this year. My husband had some health issues and, while they turned out to not be serious (*whew*!), he was advised to lose weight. (That's a lifelong struggle that we both share.) So he started, and while I did my best to be supportive, I also felt a bit scared and defensive, because darn it, *I* wasn't ready to change! The contrast between our food choices wasn't pretty...and my plate sure as heck wasn't the pretty one. So that did start me in the right direction, making small changes, starting to read lots of weight-loss stories and blogs...then came diabetes, which led to my big sprint that left him probably feeling the same way I was feeling.

Sometimes changes happen, and while there are many I still would not deliberately choose, I'd have to say that the following is true for me:

"We all have big changes in our lives that are more or less a second chance." - Harrison Ford

And then this one reminded me of all the mind-work that goes into change, especially changes relating to food and fitness:

"If you want to truly understand something, try to change it." - Kurt Lewin

Finally, because it's Friday and I refuse to be totally serious on a Friday....

"I put a dollar in one of those change machines. Nothing changed." - George Carlin