Home from a long vacation and feeling refreshed. Not gonna lie, this vacation was needed and timely: last chance to get away from work before a big push for the fall, end of this round of online classes and starting on pay-day to ensure I have the slightest of disposable income. I won't bore with the details of the vacation as a whole but an overview is appropriate. Started in Cincinnati OH, felt an earthquake in the Pocono Mountains of PA, fought a hurricane (later a tropical storm) in Pawtucket RI and had the briefest of visits with the dearest of friends in Philadelphia PA before returning home. A whirlwind of activity in a scant ten days.
All of this and I am dismayed to find that my many problems, first world as they are, remained exactly where I had left them. Bastards. But, as I mentioned before, I am refreshed and with that refreshment comes an eagerness for change and improvement. Which brings me to here.
Rather, the earlier mentioned dear friend in Philadelphia PA pushed lingering thoughts over the brink and an offhand conversation about his curiosity of blogging brought me here. I kept a journal in my youth and an earlier blog in my teens and somewhat into my first fights with college but time and urgency weathered my resolve and I am currently without. Daily reflections help us keep our voice by forcing us to follow our thoughts through to their end. Expressing ourselves to others does this as well and at the end of the day is vital to our health and growth.
Earlier forays into self-improvement have brought me to two important pillars, Benjamin Franklin and Steven Covey. Franklin was an easy pick for role-modeling. Years ago I had joined a local Junto, which is a sort of social club dedicated to self-improvement. Franklin started the fad and identified eight personal and five social virtues of an upstanding citizen. Early in our Junto meetings we chose one and discussed how it applied to our lives, then set goals for personal improvement; the next meeting we discussed our previous months work and began anew. A wonderful exercise, though I have grown a bit distant, I often spent much of my month working on the definition of the virtues themselves. This questioning was an eye-opening experience; one that I need to reengage.
Franklin also kept a journal diligently throughout his life, often beginning each day by asserting what good he would do that day and later assessing what good he had done. Steven Covey wrote the wildly popular "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" and later "The 8th Habit" books. I've enjoyed these over the years and recommend them to any and all. The eight habit focuses entirely on the development of our voice and stresses journaling in this process.
It would seem that Philadelphia has been an important birthplace to Americans throughout history. Many ideas have found their end on paper on that ground and many of these ideas, once written have found formative action in their wake. An inspiring notion.
Here's to following a thought through to its end.
