WORK IN PROGRESS/MINDFULNESS

You would think that after almost 70 years of being a work in progress I would be closer to completion, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. I am more like the roads of El Dorado County (always under construction and full of pot holes) than I am like the Empire State Building (only took about 15 months to build and still standing proud).
While I do occasionally have a manic episode when I think I am doing well, more often I am in the middle of an existential crisis around one of my many flaws and f**k ups. I can be good about identifying my own shortcomings, but I really hate it when someone else points them out to me (even more so when they are, in fact, correct). It is humiliating to be caught in the act of being small minded, dishonest, selfish, and dumb (I can be very dumb).
Under some circumstances I am a veritable one-man-band of self-congratulations and blowing my own horn. Then, I get caught in an act that shames me and forces me to ask forgiveness and, even harder, to forgive myself.
There is an axiom that states “Perfection is the Enemy of Progress.” I had to give that some thought but may have to stitch it onto a pillow and keep it in my favorite chair. None of us are ever going to be perfect, but I’d like to think that we are making progress every day toward being who we would like to be. Not, mind you, who other people may want us to be (I gave that up a couple of decades ago), but more like the person we would like to think we already are. Until we do something dumb.
Almost every magazine on the shelves these days has an article on “Mindfulness.” It seems to be the buzzword of 2018 and might not be such a bad idea, once you figure out what it means. From what I’ve read, I don’t think we should be too put off by the idea that we all have to spend hours a day contemplating our navels (AKA meditating). Every time I try to meditate I wake up about 15 minutes later refreshed but unenlightened.
I think mindfulness has more to do with paying attention; to what you are saying, thinking, doing. Mindless eating (and drinking), talking, and general “busy-ness” is what usually gets me into trouble. If I think about what I am stuffing in my pie-hole; how it tastes, looks, smells, and whether I really want it, I am less likely to wolf down that whole plate of cookies (or better yet, the dough that is meant to become cookies). And, though I am a veteran of the diet wars, I don’t mean counting the calories, or points, or carbs before I take a bite of food. I just mean “pay attention.”
There have been so many times when I have shuddered later to think about words that have just burst from my lips without thought, especially when I haven’t been paying attention to the wine I was drinking. What was I thinking? Why would I say something like that? Did I think it was funny?
Perfection would be always doing the right thing, but I already admitted to myself, and you all, that is not going to happen in this lifetime. However, I do think I can commit to making progress in that direction by paying attention to myself and what is going on around me.
One final thought: Mind that I did not say paying attention to everything that has happened in the past, what may happen in the future, and what other people should be doing. More progress will be made if I spend less time thinking about those things.