Adding and Subtracting

As I was sitting on my bed on my birthday's eve, it occurred to me that I should start doing something on my birthday for myself:  that I should start adding and subtracting things.

Not the basic math, you understand.  Instead I am referring to the act of adding something to and subtracting something from my life every year.  Birthdays are the perfect sort of event for this sort of thing:

1)  They are annual.
2)  They are a fixed date one can always remember.
3)  It is a time for giving gifts - why not to yourself?

What do I mean?  Simply that going forward on each birthday I will make a decision of at least one thing to add to my life (start doing) and one thing to subtract from my life (stop doing). 

Is this not the same as setting goals or intentions at New Year's?  It is generally the same I suppose - with the difference that I am trying to think of it different (add to and subtract from rather than do/do not do) and that it does not happen when everyone else is also trying to set their resolutions.

What to add and subtract?  It occurred to me that these can be as varied as I would like them to be.  They can be an activity.  They can be an attitude.  They can be an action.  The only rule is that the addition must improve my life and the subtraction must remove something I no longer want or need from my life.

How did I do?  I came up a list of four items for each, a mix of actions and attitudes and perhaps an activity.  I need to go back this week, review them, and rank them in order of how I would like to see them dealt with.

But make no mistake:  I intend to do it.  After all, birthdays are a fine time to receive gifts - and what better gift than that of self improvement.