Ricko Manifesto Update

Within a few hours, month number two for the new year will be history. So how am I doing with the challenges and goals I put on my plate for 2010?
The answer is that all in all, it has been a very good month. My major focus has been getting healthy and staying that way.
During February I totally reprogrammed. I changed my diet, and I began using free weights three days a week and I am working at aerobic exercise seven days a week. I also spend time each morning on the ole yoga mat doing some stretching and meditation exercises. On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the best, as for eating healthy I give myself a 9. No processed or fried foods for an entire month!
In the exercise category I give myself a 5. That's low but in the past it would have been a negative figure. I will do better!
Don't think I told you this, but as part of my efforts to gain more inner peace, I made a vow to eliminate as much idle chatter or chit chat as possible. Instead of talking so much, I am trying to be the "observer" or "listener".
There are two conversations that I observe, first is the chatter that takes place inside my head, the "inside" voice. The second conversations are those that take place with the "outside" voice.
Observing the inside voice has exposed how many angry conversations that are taking place, in my head, in any given day. Did I say day, hell, I mean minute. With the inner voice I am continually giving myself and others hell. This discovery has let me know to a large degree, just how far I have to go, to gain "real" inner peace. However, I can't get down on myself, as Eckhart Tolle says, "awareness is the first and most important step on the road to discovery, to inner peace." Now, I am aware! The challenge going forward is to silence that inner voice, that inner chatter, that is blocking and holding me back from true peace.
Observing the outside conversations that take place around me and those I join in, has made me aware of how much "war" takes place in daily conversations.
I have noticed that I and many others, spend a major portion of our time lifting ourselves egos)above others. I refer to these conversations as "war talk". The act of lifting ones self above others is warfare, a struggle, regardless of how innocent the words may sound.
Here is an example, I can't believe he didn't do that! or I can't believe she did that! Such statements are warfare because they imply that "I", the speaker, would never do something so wrong or heartless, therefore I am a better person and they are below me. Such statements put others down and lift us up to an imaginary, higher moral ground.
So, what have I learned?
#1. To be at peace, I must control the inner conversations and the tongue.
#2. My conversations about and with others, reveal if I am a person of peace or war.

My best quote of the month comes from the book Rumi, The Book of Love. "Judge a moth by it's candle." (Now that's powerful!)