Hello friends
As 2023 comes to a close, I’ve been looking back on the year and thinking of the ways I’ve changed over the course of the last twelve months, as well as some of the ways in which I haven’t. Another year has passed, so in what ways am I a different person today than I was at the beginning of 2023?
My next blog entry will be about some of my activities, accomplishments, and areas of personal growth in 2023 (as well as areas that didn’t grow), but before I go into those I want to introduce this blog, and discuss some of my reasons for starting it now. You will have to forgive the choppiness of my writing, but it has been a long time since I took the time to really write very much and I am out of practice. One of my goals is to write more, which includes this blog, and I am developing my writing voice. 🙂
I’ve been thinking about starting an online journal for several years, mostly for myself so that I don’t forget the places I went, things I did, people I met, and just in general how I got to be who, what, and where I am now. I’ve also spent some time thinking lately about how each of us is today the product of all of those little daily and weekly decisions and experiences, and of how they add up to to who and where we are now. It also occurred to me that if I don’t remember my past very well, I probably don’t know or understand who I am now. How many of us actually remember very many of those choices and experiences, especially if we didn’t take the time to write them down or record them?
How can we realistically hope to grow as a person tomorrow when we don’t understand ourselves today?
There is also something else in this desire to start a web blog, something about wanting to record those thoughts and experiences on the web so that others might know them, and not just me. I could always do this in a private notebook and not have to worry about anyone else learning something about me I might be embarrassed by, or watching in real-time (or if looking back, recorded for posterity) some goal I set for myself and failed completely at achieving. In today’s social media landscape there are many examples of seemingly perfect, or at the very least very successful, individuals sharing their accomplished lives, but that isn’t something that many of us mere mortals can relate to. At least not this one, and I suspect not many of you, either. But what we can relate to are other human beings that work and struggle to make their todays and tomorrows better than their yesterdays, because it’s in that process of daily living that we become who we are.
Personal Development
There’s a little more to this than simply a record of life and events, there is a record of my attempts to create a person I would more wish to be. A record of my attempts to build a life I’m proud of, and not just live the one I’m in. I started this entry talking about how we are a product of our experiences and the choices we made up to this point, but there is another idea that follows from that. There is the possibility that who we are in the future can be someone new and different from who we are at present. The choices we make and the experiences we seek out (as well as those we avoid) today can, and will, result in a new person tomorrow.
Shoutout to Zen Habits
There’s another blog out there that I’m inspired by: zenhabits. I originally found that site around the year 2008(?) - I don’t remember exactly when - but it was the late 2000s and blogging was really starting to take off. I have continued to follow it on-and-off since that time. It’s still actively maintained and added to by its creator, Leo Babauta, and it chronicles his journey of self-improvement and personal development and growth over the years. That is something that I wish to replicate for myself as well, and help others along the way if I can. If recording my journey helps another person with theirs, as Leo’s has for mine, then I’ll do this in full view. This blog isn’t meant to be a clone of Zen Habits, or an attempt to duplicate what he has created specifically, but rather it is another take on self improvement and development. Which is something many of us can relate to wanting, but I imagine few really know achieving.
I may have missed the blogging wave by about 15 years, but the internet is still open and there is still a lot of room and opportunity to start, so here we go. Welcome along. 🙂