Essentials?

``...I think Mr. Darcy improves on acquaintance.''

``Indeed!'' cried Wickham with a look which did not escape her. ``And pray may I ask -- ?'' but checking himself, he added in a gayer tone, ``Is it in address that he improves? Has he deigned to add ought of civility to his ordinary style? for I dare not hope,'' he continued in a lower and more serious tone, ``that he is improved in essentials.''

``Oh, no!'' said Elizabeth. ``In essentials, I believe, he is very much what he ever was.''

"Pride and Prejudice", Jane Austen

I have been wondering lately whether someone can truly change. I guess I am not entirely sure what that means. Do you think that people, in essentials, are unchanging, but that it is in how we view, or in the information we have of them that casts their character? But when it is in your own self that you are trying to make those changes, do your essentials hold weight? Are essentials mostly moral, or do they cover self image and attitude? In pride and prejudice, at the end, Darcy explains that he was taught good morals but left to follow them in pride and conceit. And so this man we saw as cold becomes a man who on closer inspection is truly just learning a new way of talking to people and seeing the world. He is changing. But then there is the question of attitude....

There will be no argument from anyone who knows me when I state that I am a lazy person. I am not afraid of hard work, and in some (very rare) cases actually revel in it, but I do do my very best to avoid as much of it as possible. It is almost a subconscious, instinctive thing. So when I say that my husband and I are trying to eat better, and I have decided to try and lose weight you will not be surprised that I have done very little about it. My Hubby and I are doing more to eat better. We have, for a little over a month now, been avoiding pop. We no longer buy it, so it isn't even in the house to tempt us. And this last grocery shop that we did, we did together with an eye for healthier possibilities. (For example I ate FISH tonight!) I downloaded "workout" music, and have Wii fit to help get me moving. But I have only done one session on the Wii, and haven't been out to the elliptical at all. I like sitting still TOO MUCH. I like to read books and play on the computer. I haven't been into being active since.... elementary school I think. So even though Malcolm is raiding tonight, and I could have at least played Wii Fit to get some activity into the day, I played Bejeweled Blitz on my iPod Touch for like an hour, maybe more. So I guess I am wondering if being lazy is part of what is essentially Me, and if I will even stop procrastinating and move past lazy. Probably never.

P.S. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was okay. Funny. But I prefer the original. So, I have a copy to loan out if anybody wants to read it! (Zombies... although if you want to borrow the original, that is cool too)