Wanted: A disciplined life

As I left work tonight, a chain reaction of events led me to the stark conclusion that I am a lazy bum.

OK, so lazy doesn't really cut it, because my professional work ethic is anything but lazy. But sloth perhaps has become a huge fault of mine since, well, since as long as I can remember.

Deep breath. "I am a sloth."

Wow, it felt good to get that off my chest. There are other lighter revelations I can bring to light, like my new preference for Pepsi over Coca Cola, or my secret desire to see the Arkansas Razorbacks succeed in their sporting endeavors.

Anyways, my realization that Sloth started to hit me right after getting off of work. I had to walk 30 seconds in the pouring rain to my car parked in the back. I had a great, close spot at work this morning. How'd I lose it? I chose to sleep in instead of packing a lunch, and had to waste most of my lunch break going to Subway instead (the new Oven Crisp Chicken Sandwich, despite what The Miz tells you, was disappointing).

After getting in my car, an old Beetle that has probably seen better days, water on the roof of my car came pouring into my car when I flipped it into reverse, splashing water onto my iPhone. The part of the phone where I hear people talking was affected, making conversations extremely hard to hear.

The water thing annoyed me so much that I thought I should sell my car, that I needed to convert my family to a one-car fam so that we could use the extra money to pay off debts. That got me thinking about the fact that I'm going to be a dad come March, and that every night when I come home, I don't do anything productive outside of cooking dinner for my beautiful wife.

I live an undisciplined life. I don't allow any time for prayer or Bible reading, I don't clean like I should. Instead, I get online and play around on Twitter (not even posting things of value for others most of the time), wasting valuable time that could be spent cleaning our messy home, or doing more productive things like writing.

Add that realization to the fact that the potholder was on the floor instead of hanging up where it should be, and I snapped. I've had it with my so-called life! God, my wife, our future child deserve a better me, a more disciplined me. Just this past weekend, a friend of High School named Sarah, a mother of two beautiful children, was posting on Facebook about doing all of this cleaning around the house.

It made me realize that with parenthood coming up, it is time to grow up in all aspects of my life, cleaning included.

So I made a pact with God, myself, and my wife. I would devote anywhere from 10-30 minutes each night doing some cleaning around the house, and when possible, 20-30 minutes of writing on our blog or posting helpful Twitter updates. And starting with 5-10 minutes of Scripture reading as well.

Even when doing that and cooking dinner, that still allows me at least an hour of fun time. I really think in the long-run, I'll be happier by having some structure in my personal life, instead of letting time pass me by.

Tonight, I did three loads of laundry and cleaned the oven. Tomorrow? Straighten up the living room. Maybe I'll dust some furniture on Thursday.

Who knew that cleaning could be so rewarding?