It's been a week into my resolution to live in the moment, eat healthy and stand up straight, and the determination to do just that is still strong. Especially the eating healthy and drinking lots of water part (I'm also adding 'more exercise' to the agenda). Little did I know last Monday, it was only the beginning.

The rainy weather seems to have brought me renewed resolve to be a better person - not really, I just like using the weather as my all-encompassing scapegoat. Since last week, I've been inspired about/reminded to/thought of a bunch of different things I'd like to see me achieve or strive towards, most of which I've probably forgotten. Still, it's nice to sense and remember the desire if not the goal, which may be almost as important sometimes.

Then there's this guy - Randy Pausch. A ten-second intro: Randy is dying from pancreatic cancer, doctors predicted last year that he had less than six months to live and so he delivered his 'last lecture' at Carnegie Mellon University. The lecture became an Internet phenomenon and he got invited onto Oprah to deliver a snippet of it.

Now let's get this out in the open: I love Oprah. Even on days when I'm totally uninterested in what she's discussing, which isn't very often. Almost anyone who gets invited on Oprah instantly earns brownie points in my book, and if Oprah thinks we should hear this guy, we probably should hear this guy.

Randy had quite a few things to say about living life that struck me, but I'll just stick to these two, which struck a real guilty chord within, for now:

1. Tell the truth. I don't normally have a problem with this... until I know what I really think is going to upset the other person. Isn't that typical? What if I'm really annoyed at someone, but I pretend everything's ok? Is that not telling the truth? The more I think about it, the more I know this is only going to get more complicated.

2. Apologise (properly). Again, something we probably know off the top of our heads, but do we really apologise properly? I don't think I do. In fact, when unprepared, I really suck at it, especially according to Randy's criteria for apologising properly. He says there are three parts to a real apology: 'I'm sorry', 'It's my fault', 'What can I do?' I'm lucky to touch on the second, never mind the third, so I'm going to try and take this to heart, because this is something I'll probably be doing a lot of for the rest of my life. I also want to start by apologising to everyone I never apologised properly to:

I'm sorry. I mean it.

It's my fault. I hardly say this, and I really should say it more often.

What can I do? I almost never say this, although I usually follow up my 'I'm sorry' with an attempt to fix whatever I screwed up, if it's fixable. From now on, I should also ask.

(Note: This only applies to people I've actually apologised to, not every Tom, Dick and Sally who imagine I owe them an apology. Unfortunately for them, I'm also learning to stand up for what I believe in and hold my ground.)

Randy's 11 minutes on Oprah is here, or you can view the full lecture here. He's a great speaker - funny, captivating and so, so brave in the face of medically certain premature death. I first got wind of him from my in-laws, who, along with my mother, are the biggest senders of forwarded mail in my inbox. Interesting...