Today, day 5 of this month-long adventure, I invite you to invite your Higher Power — God, Higher Self, however you see the Force that can do things you in your human expression can’t — in on that list, and on your life in general. Here’s one way to do that: read it over, maybe just before bed, and ask to be shown — via an insight, a dream, whatever — what this Higher Whatever-It-Is has to say about what you’re doing. 

I did it last night so I’d have something to write to you today. I read over my list (part of it is written here from day 2; there’s more to it, some thirty entries in all), asked for some guidance or a sign, and went to sleep. I woke up with a clearer message than I expected, and it even came with alliteration. I was to work on, I was told: “lateness, laziness, and late nights.” (Maybe your Higher Power is sweet and gentle to your ego; mine seems to delight in ripping my ego to shreds. I’m using “ego” in the spiritual sense, as that part of me that wants to be separate from my Creator, as opposed to the psychological sense in which ego means healthy individuation.)

Definitions notwithstanding, I understood completely what this unflattering insight was about. I mentioned in the list you read that I wanted to be better about being on time. I long deluded myself that the time thing was just a minor fault, no big deal. In fact, it was part of my charm: I’m an Aries; I want to live every minute; being, heaven forbid, early, would mean that I could miss something. But it’s not a minor flaw anymore. It’s more of a compulsion: answer one more email before you leave. Just check the phone messages. Take the dishes out of the dishwasher. Water the plants. I find things that will make me late because I just plum got used to being late. It is not serving me. (My husband has told me this for years. Now even God is telling me.)

The laziness refers to getting to the gym. I’m better than most people. Sometimes I go faithfully for months. But sometimes I don’t. There’s heart disease in my family going back to the Stone Age. I can’t play around with exercising when I feel like it. I’m also lazy about unpacking when I travel, and I travel about a third of the time so that’s a lot of not unpacking. Okay, God (and guides, angels, et al): duly noted.

The “late nights” is staying up after 10 when I don’t have some good reason to be out. Maybe we’re watching Mad Men, or even just Law & Order Special Victims Unit, which comes on about a thousand times a week. Or maybe I’m working late, deluding myself that I’ll get it all done. In this cyber age, there is never a state of all done, even if we stayed up all night every night and lost our minds. Bottom line: if I’m in bed with the lights off by 10, I can be up by 6 and do the M-E (meditation and exercise we talked about), check in by phone with my action partner, make juice, make the bed, and make a day for myself. Lolling around under those delicious covers doesn’t get me anywhere.

So, if you’re game, run your goals and aspirations past the Powers that Be. Expect honesty and a decided lack of sugar-coating. Do what you’re told and you’ll soar beyond your wildest dreams.