This blog post was supposed to have gone out yesterday, on the 10th day of Elul. But it’s OK, nobody is perfect, especially me. I am determined to make it count anyway!

Making things count is a matter of choice – if we are playing mind games with ourselves late at night, we might tell ourselves that those carbs don’t really count. Of course they do – but we have the prerogative of deciding that they don’t. It is probably best not to do that every day, but sometimes we need to make that choice.

Other times we might decide that something counts when maybe it really doesn’t – we might be involved in a game that is already lost, but we decide to keep on fighting even though the score will not really count. But we have decided that it does, in our own private reckoning. We want to think of ourselves as someone who always gives their all, and that is more important than the end result.

I’m not trying to say here that we should just ignore reality. But sometimes the emotional landscape is more important than the physical one, and it becomes important to acknowledge that fact.

Ultimately, the judge of what counts and does not count in your life is only you. Others will try to take that role (and sometimes it is OK to assign it to them, but that’s a choice too), but in the end, only you can decide what really counts.

So as you go out there and make the many choices that we have to make every day, remember that you get to decide what counts – but once you’ve made that decision, make sure that you live up to it.

You will like yourself so much better, don’t you agree?