Shiny Happy People

Yesterday as I was preparing to leave the office for the day at the high school, our IT guy from Price walked up to my door with a computer tower in hand. "I thought you were at the high school today?" I explained my delayed departure and learned that I was getting a new computer, keyboard, mouse, and monitor at work. He said it was time for an update, I say that I got a new computer because I got a license (it arrived in the mail the day previous). Today I got in to work and saw how clean it all was and nice and fast and new and ...you get the idea. We all like bright, shiny new things. I went home for lunch and tried to explain to David how clean it looks and he said "of course it looks clean, it is NEW". "No, when you look at the screen, it looks clean on the inside." He, of course, laughed at my weirdness, but I kept thinking about it. There are things we can do in our lives to polish, clean and make something appear bright, shiny, and fresh on the outside, but it still feels gross, yucky and bogged down inside. Sometimes the things inside are sickness, allergies, a bad mood or things we hide from others due to guilt, shame, or fear of rejection. Maybe we don't move as fast as we used to. Maybe we struggle to breathe. Possibly we do not venture outside of our comfort zone very often because of the things we keep inside ourselves and what we worry others will say or do. Oftentimes these things just continue to bog us down until we are feeling so down that we feel stuck and aren't very productive. There have been times when I have noticed it and done something about it. In grad school I was feeling internally "junky" (not a clinical term) so I did a media cleanse. No movies (huge for me) and no secular music for three months (I think, maybe it was just one?). A very difficult goal, but I managed and it helped me feel a little more shiny. I suppose this is what the license thing is. A goal complete. One less nagging, bugging, incomplete thing in my life. Sure, there are so many things I could finish to improve my shine, but we're talking baby steps here. What is one thing you need to do to improve your shine today?