I like my life. I have a lot of things I’m proud of, and a lot of things I enjoy. But there’s also a lot of things I want to do more, make better, a lot of ways I want to be …well…generally gooder. More better gooder. I want to be (in no particular order) more:

• Healthy
• Spiritual
• Generous
• Organized
• Green
• Frugal
• Loving
• Fun
• Beautiful
• Wealthy

Don’t you?

But there are limits. Maybe it’s the nature of blogging and “niche” sites, but it seems like a lot of people out here in the netiverse are…well…(no offense) kinda nutso about whatever topic they’re writing on. Take frugality, for example. I don’t have all the money in the world - but I dont’ have all the time in the world, either. On one of my favorite sites, Hillbilly Housewife, you can find all sorts of tips on reducing your grocery budget and scratch cooking, but a lot of it trends like this:

Monday: Begin the week with a hearty breakfast. After the breakfast dishes are done, prepare the vegetables for Lentil Soup, and put the Lentils on to cook. Soak 2lbs of pinto beans in boiling water to cover for 1 or 2 hours. Half of them are for supper tonight and the other half for supper tomorrow. Punch down your bread dough which should be nicely risen by now. Divide it into 4 loaves. Allow it to rise for 1 or 2 hours and then bake. After soaking the pinto beans, boil them until tender and refrigerate. Reheat half of them for dinner and use the other half for tomorrow.

I’m sorry, that ain’t gonna happen. I have a 2 year old and a 2 month old, we’re trying to live in New York City on one income. That’s my thing, the big circumstance that affects the way I do everything. Maybe your thing is you have a 100-hour a week career, or you’re juggling work and children, or a vocation plus a day job (or two), or you’re taking care of your parents, or you have a mountain of debt, or a chronic health condition - or all of the above.

Everybody’s got something, and we haven’t got time to do everything “right”. But we can’t just throw our hands up and let entropy win. Surely, I tell myself, there have to be ways to improve, to become more the person I want to be, without making myself crazy.

So that’s what we’re doing here. Self-improvement, lifestyle design, whatever you want to call it. It’s about taking our circumstances and our desires, from pet peeves to big goals and breaking them down into doable steps.

As my beloved FlyLady says: “You do not have to have the “perfect” amount of time, the “perfect” circumstances or the “perfect” setting to accomplish something.” Don’t try to be perfect, just take what you’ve got and do some little thing every day to make it more better gooder.