I like to read The Pioneer Woman‘s site each day.  She makes me laugh with her tales of life on the ranch in Oklahoma with her husband, the four kids, their four dogs, and various other livestock.  Her recipes are great (but don’t usually fly in our house because of their meat content).  But her tips and tricks for digital photography and photo editing are fantastic.  She has taught me a lot in that area especially.

Usually about once a week or so, she has a contest of some sort.  Last week, she held a contest/fundraiser for a blogger friend of hers who is raising money for the Livestrong foundation.  Her friend Fat Cyclist writes about his wife’s struggle with metastatic breast cancer.  The Pioneer Woman decided to help by tying one of her giveaways to donating to his team.

In another one, she asked a simple question: “What do you fight in your life?”

Her question was not meant to be a deep one; in fact, she mentioned how it could be simply “fighting the urge to eat all of the chocolate in the house”.  She was struck, however, by the human connections that started coming through with the answer to this question.

And, it’s funny when I started thinking about this one myself.

What do I fight in my life?

• I fight the urge to throw all of the clutter away instead of dealing with the source of it in the house.
• I fight the urge to throw my diet and exercise routine out the window and succumb to the diseases that related to obesity that are dominate in my dad’s family – heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol.  And the mental ones that aren’t helped by it like anxiety and depression.  While it would be easier to give up, the fact I don’t want that for my kids keeps me in the fight.
• And related to this one, I fight my own self image of how I look.  It’s amazing how long it takes after losing weight for your inner image of yourself to catch up to reality.
• I fight laundry – the seemingly never ending stream of it.
• I fight to retain patience at home and at work..
• I fight my temper to keep it under control in certain situations.
• I fight the urge to kill Mr Chatty each day.
• I also fight my brain when it starts thinking too much.  Don’t always win this one, but I am getting better at it.
• I fight my piles of books and my desire to get more.
• I fight to not let others talk down to me at work because I’m female or because of my age.  (The latter gets easier each year, but I still encounter it occasionally.)
• I fight to stay current with my skill set at work.  Being a manager takes a lot of pressure off, but getting laid off puts it back on.  Damn economy!
• I fight with myself to make sure I am fighting the right battles in my life.  I do this by constantly asking myself if this is a hill I am willing to die on? Or can I lose this battle, but still win the war?  

This was my short list.  Think about that question yourself.  What do you fight in your life?