Patience (or, Why Emily Would Fail at Being a Jedi)

I just graduated from a rather expensive college this May; couple that with being a shopaholic and a travelaholic, I'm broke. This is bad news for me, especially now that I'm trying to get back into a non-spherical shape.

I have this theory about myself: I only have a finite amount of patience. Patience is the same thing as willpower for me- it took me a while last summer when I was on DIET: ROUND ONE to figure this one out, but the more effort I had to put in to not eating chocolate and dragging myself on runs, the grumpier I would get with people. Contra-positively, the happier I was with people, the more likely I was to slack with diet and exercise.

Now let's look at a chart:

 So as you can see, after everything else that's going on in my day, I really only have about 1% of my patience left to resist the siren call of malls, online shopping, and even the "as seen on TV" section that's suddenly appeared in CVS (evidence: my turbie, purchased last week whilst buying shampoo).

I face the very real dilemma of not really knowing if I should buy something every once in a while, to stay strong with my diet (because if I take more than my allotted share of patience for not shopping, it sure as heck is going to cut into the patience I have for not eating tons of chocolate), or realizing that I don't have money and giving in to a little more chocolate that evening.

Also, when I do get frustrated with the rate I'm losing weight (slowly, though it is progress), I usually decide to kick up my exercise a notch. But to motivate myself to do THAT, I usually need a cute workout tee, a new pair of sneakers, or a new sports bra.  Thank goodness for Bob's on the shoe and shirt front, but sports bras are a whole other, expensive story.

I found this quote- not sure where it came from, but I liked it.

Patience is waiting. Not passively waiting. That is laziness. But to keep going when the going is hard and slow - that is patience.