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I've always tried to figure out how something could be both NEW and IMPROVED. I mean, if it's new, then it never existed before now. If it never existed before now, then how could it have been imrpoved? Inversely, if the something is improved then it must have existed in some form and it has since been altered in a way that is believed to be better. If it already existed and thus improved, then how could it be new? Sure you could argue that it had existed but now it's better (improved) therefore the final product is something other than what had existed earlier, thus it is also new. You could, but that makes no sense. I cannot take my 1997 Infiniti Q45 with 220,000 miles on it to the car shop, give it an orange pearlescent paint job, adjust the suspension, add "Spinners" and then walk away and call the car NEW and IMPROVED. It existed before, but now I changed it and made it better so for sure it is improved, but the car is not new just because now it exists in a manner different than before I fixed it. At the same time, if I drive my broken down Q to the infiniti dealership and drive off with a 2009 G35 I certainly have improved my car SITUATION, but the car itself is NEW but it is not also IMPROVED. My point is either something is new or something is improved, but it is not both new and improved.

People spend a lot of their time trying to make themselves new. After a nasty break-up a girl rallies around her girlfriends, they head out to a club, make a dance circle around their bags and shoes, and inevitably at some point between the fourth or fifth Jolly Rancher shot the girl will tell her friends that this is the NEW whatever her name is. Or when a man quits his job and goes out to buy himself a new wardrobe in the hopes that his Prada shoes will make the difference in his NEW life. Somehow their is a correlation that we make between severing the ties with the past and enjoying a more pleasurable life experience.

But I think that most people don't want to become new people. I think what they really want is to become an improved person. What I want to do is take an experience and then use it to dictate my actions in future experiences. Even when you leave behind your old ways or if you move out to a new town and abandon old acquaintances and family, it's not about abandoning or leaving behind the things that you have already learned. It's more about taking what you have learned and using it to make your future more pleasurable.

They say that when a man experiences cancer that he comes out on the otherside a new man. Well, I don't want to be a new man. I just want to be an improved man. I just want my cancer to build upon the myriad other lessons I've already learned. I don't want my cancer experience to be generative, forging a new creation through fire and smoke. In fact, I know cancer is not making me a new man. I appreciate the catharsis that is my cancer, because through it I have rid myself of self-pity and no longer am overcome with fear. Cancer may have been the catalyst through which the change was brought about, but cancer is not the vehicle of change. Cancer is merely an occurrence, like getting a hang-nail; it is something that happens. It is no more in control of itself than I am in control of developing cancer. The human being is the vehicle of change. I can choose to mentally change my outlook, and I DO choose. The ability to choose makes me infinitely more powerful than the cancer.

It is easy to press the reset button and start a NEW game when your tetris blocks stack too awkwardly together; it is much more difficult to choose to IMPROVE the unfavorable board you find in front of you. You cannot both start the game over and still be playing the same game. Don't look outwardly to find the help, just look inside yourself. Don't ask for a miracle, be the miracle and remember that all of life is nothing more than a hang-nail...

"If you wanna make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and then make the change. You gotta get it right while you got the time 'cause when you close your heart, you close your mind." - Michael Jackson, Man in the Mirror