I am twenty-two years of age as of today and looking back on the last two decades and two extra years I find myself not looking back at much. The truth is that when I look at my life I find myself disappointed, extremely disappointed. I am not hugely successful with people, not particularly intelligent, I’m unfit and unhealthy, I’m bad with money, and I’m impatient. I can’t play any instruments despite owning several and I can only speak one language. I’m not well travelled and I have little knowledge of the world. What’s probably worse is that I have aspirations and never follow them through. My life up to this point has been a shambles, a shadow of a life, a pathetic excuse for a life, a waste of life. I intend to change this. I am giving myself one year and one month to take my life and make something of it. I will take the aspects of my life and myself and change them to how I want. No longer will I wallow in unmotivated depression but I shall now make a move on, reach for more. I honestly believe there is no greater thing a person can do than strive for more. So over the next year and a month I will waste less time on the Internet yet try to do more with my time on the Internet. I will learn a language. I will learn to use one of the many instruments I own. I will do more. Spend less. Eat well. Exercise. I will do a lot. I do not pretend that this is going to be easy or that change will come quickly, I know I must have patience and persevere. And I intend to update this blog, preferably everyday though not necessarily, to keep you up to date, to chart my course, and to keep me going. Over the next week or so I will be mainly setting those challenges that I will lay ahead of me. So wish me luck and I hope this inspires you to reach further.

Tuesday, 27 September 2011

A Month! And A Day!

In case you, my numerous and avid readers, hadn’t noticed already yesterday was one month since I began this endeavour on my 22nd birthday. From here on there is one year, one day less. How do I feel about this so far? Well in truth I feel positive and negative. If I am honest it has been a busy month and I have still managed to make a number on some aspects of my life and have been able to see some of the practical difficulties of this great attempt. I think there is still more I could have done especially over the last two weeks where I have been off the ball. I think one thing that I have come to realise over the last two weeks and even today that the hardest thing about this is the thing I want to improve the most. My motivation. I have also discovered that some tasks I have been naïve about, for example reading two books at once. Another thing I have noticed about how I have been tackling this is that I have heavily looked at improving myself intellectually through activities and increasing my general activities. Despite my initial plan I have done as much work on my physical or mental-emotional state. So moving into the following year I realise in several areas such as my learning of guitar and Spanish I need to up my game, however in the department of reading and some craft areas like knitting I think that I can calm down. Do I have any exact and more refined goals? Well from two books a week I shall be scaling down to a guarantee of just one book a week unless it is a particularly heavy book in which case I will state before I start. I will be buying a book on Spanish to increase my ability there and will hopefully be purchasing a guitar. I also now have the first part of my student loan in so I can begin to better control my finances following the plan of putting £100 into savings and taking out £100 to spend after each pay, leaving any left within my account to help cover any bills etc. I shall also look to follow tasks that will help engage the aspects of my person beyond my intellect that I want to challenge.
Looking more closely at the week been and the week to come what can I say? I have completed all but one of the tasks which was to translate a piece into Spanish. I feel I have done well to an extent though I will not lie and admit the last too weeks have been full of the laziness I detest. As for next week I expect only to finish one book, I am knitting a scarf though I know that won’t be finished. I do plan on acquiring an acoustic guitar as well as a study book for Spanish, I hope to have finalised my decision on what to do as entry to the gallery exhibition. On top of that I shall post my first short story with aim to have all done and one chosen as a base for my full book by Christmas.
As for my task of deciding upon the circumstances in which I can drink I have drawn up my list. I shall allow myself to drink at event where I am performing, I shall allow myself to specifically drink WITH a meal of particular significance and I shall have 6 events over the next year where I shall allow myself alcohol. However I imagine from what I have heard of the walk I intend to take across Spain that drink will be difficult to avoid, I therefore may allow myself drink on that trek of tradition. The first occasion where I will allow myself the joy of consumption will be on the 16th of October which shall be the date of my day of honesty. Yes I shall spend the entirety of the 16th of October telling only the truth and shall openly answer all questions no matter how awkward, the only exception being I shall not answer questions about other people only my personal interactions. I shall spend the day in my usual routine but shall settle myself in a pub for the evening, either the Illicit Still or Somewhere with reasonable and comfortable seating, perhaps Triple Kirks.

No comments:

Post a Comment