Why I Strive

     I have been writing quite a bit on personal development lately and I realize the topic may seem cliche' to some but honestly it has become a way of life for me and has always been one of the few things that inspire me to write on a constant basis. Personal development is one of the few subjects that I feel compelled to write on over and over again and I write with the purpose of developing myself so it's constantly an underlying theme. There are topics I get swept up in and enjoy creating pieces on... but don't revisit them frequently and there are those things I do entirely for fun such as my outfit posts but I am not the type of blogger who keeps an online event journal or posts life updates regularly (which is not a bad thing, some of my favorite bloggers do this, and in a very compelling way) but I am on a life journey to learn and grow as a person, to be ever-evolving and improving, to grow my capacity as a human being. That is in essence one of the reasons I began this blog, to force myself to make consistent use of my love of and still-developing talent for writing.

     So I want to say this here and now... I am happy. I am excited and enthusiastic about not only my future, but my personal potential. Despite my musings on my most recent discovery of yet another mental stumbling block, brick wall, or flat out self-deception... I am thrilled to be uncovering these things tucked away within my self and am in no means beating myself up by writing them out and offering them up publicly to whomever chooses to read them. I admit, I have tendencies toward self-destruction, but those tendencies have always leaned in the direction of shutting people out, holing up alone in my brain to stew over my many neuroses. So this is me getting out of my comfort zone. And nothing new can be accomplished in one's life without first doing that, seeing as comfort zones are inherently made up of those things to which we are already familiar... that which we have already accomplished. It is a place I do not wish to dwell.

Photo C/O xJasonRogersx

In light of that information and in the sake of full disclosure, ...and accountability I would like to provide a progress report on some of my passed proposals/commitments/proclamations:

• I am just as sarcastic as ever. I made some progress in the first few days after this post but have seriously fallen off the wagon. However...
• My checklists have been working out extremely well so far, though it has only been a week and a half, and that is having quite the positive effect on my attitude which has lessened the frequency with which I am burdened by the impulse to snark it up.
• I have still been struggling now and again in showing my enthusiasm in public, and at times even private situations depending on the environment but have stretched my legs on a few occasions recently outside of Unity Tour and have gotten only positive reception for my efforts.
• I have also done pretty well in taking control back of my own calendar... the checklists have helped tremendously with that one as well, seeing as my main priorities are all covered in my daily to-do leaving my head clear to figure out the rest in a more sane fashion.

Amidst all of these small revelations I've had and the baby steps I have been taking forward I also happened to stumble my way into a major paradigm shift a few weeks ago that has inspired much of my recent progress. It is however a topic for another time as my mind is still readjusting to this new lens through which I see the world.

What have you discovered about yourself lately?

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