Category: life

Deleted Posts and private posts: A 2020 musing

So today I felt like writing. Some days are like that. Roll out of bed, drink some coffee, and write. In honor of the 5 year anniversary of the blog, we’re going to be taking a look back and simply enjoy the stories that have been told throughout the years. Half a decade is a long time to be doing anything and I’ve been writing for the better part of 8 years. I’ve been a reader and a blogger throughout that time. I’ve watched blogs grow and die yet what you don’t see are the posts unseen. The articles made private and the ones deleted in the blink of an eye. I used to have a thousand drafts of articles never written, ideas never allowed to blossom. I tried a revival series once upon a time, taking my drafts and using the titles as prompts. Some were a few weeks old, others years old.

Writing is tough. If topics aren’t covered gracefully, people lose interest and at worst, you are offending people. One of my now deleted posts was one of my first posts on religion. Nothing crazy but a post I deleted nonetheless. Finding your footing is hard and all too often we’re afraid to stumble. Another discarded draft was on gun violence, back when people weren’t all too numb to the record setting shootings we have in the US. Another, a late night ramble made private concerning my relationship status, which is still very much single. We live in the information age and for the most part I’ve enjoyed what technology has brought to offer. I have a voice and that’s beautiful.

I always try to stray away from these ramble topics. I like content focused articles but honestly, ramble writing is therapeutic. In that sense, the blog hasn’t changed so much in the last 5 years. My writing has become more focused over time but a ramble is still a ramble. This post would be easy to delete, to stop half way through but I always find it an interesting perspective looking back. By keeping my posts, I’ve essentially created my very own time machine, where I can remember exact moments where I was in a given moment. My young adult life, well documented, for the world to see. So now, when I write, it’s with the intent to publish. And to be honest, I regret deleting my earlier posts. God and I have a complicated relationship but reading my thought process at a time when I was full blown atheist was fascinating. Over time, the article will fade into the abyss, but I have to wonder if I’ll ever tackle religion again in its full beauty. And gun violence? I wouldn’t even know where to start; it used to be a top concern for the US but years of inaction have left the point mute.

And that’s it! Just felt like writing today in a more relaxed tone. Over the coming months I’m getting an itch for poetry and short stories so we’ll see what happens later on this year. I’ll be trying out some writing workshops here and there as well, so we’ll see if there’s any noticeable change. And my book? still very much a work in progress, just a lot of research and fear of publishing but I’m committed. And if you like what I write, please like, follow, and share with others who might enjoy my writing! This year I’m making the push to grow the blog so I can eventually write full time. In a perfect world, I’d be traveling, writing, and learning. We’ve already surpassed 2019 in terms of everything, so we’re on the right track. The year is shaping up to look a lot like 2018 but I’m confident that we’ll surpass 2018. I have a lot planned for the year and I’m excited. Below is a link to my Patreon and Ko-Fi, I do everything on this blog by myself, so the donations help! Whether it’s a one time donation or a subscription, I cannot express how grateful I am for any support.

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And that’s it! Let me know what your thoughts are! I am always open to feedback!

My 4 pillars to a meaningful life

So, I scrapped the original article. I found it to be boring and contrived and not what I wanted to write at the moment. Articles are always tricky and a lot of my process is all about flow. If an article is purely informational, that’s no fun for me to write. Originally, this article was a list where I covered my 4 pillars that I’ve used for the last 7 years to guide my behavior: Spiritual, Social/Emotional, Mental, and Physical. If they sound familiar, that’s because they are. I adopted these pillars at a time when I had no guidance, no direction and they’re based off of Stephen Covey’s book “7 Habits for highly Effective People”. But listing my habits and giving advice was too boring. And during a Pandemic, I simply can’t get bored; boredom leads to cabin fever and cabin fever leads to insanity. So I stopped. I wrote about Spiritual and Mental and then I just stopped, wrote another article and said today that it’d just be better to start over. I’ve done lists before but a conversational approach? I’ve also done, but it never gets old.

My final article for this month will be next week and will be a reflection piece. I’m taking a lighter approach this year as my health has drastically improved over the years. Every demon tackled, each new challenge I face is easier than the last or at least, a situation I can handle. A lot of my health, in fact, I owe to my 4 pillars. Originally titled, “My 4 pillars to a happy life”, both titles work in this case. My Sophomore year of College, I fiddled around with the concepts in 7 habits, taking a learn and apply approach. I tried one pillar at a time and while each are great on their own, they only work when practiced together. Spiritual I meditate and find myself in nature. Feeling the grass on my feet, hearing the birds chirp, creeks bubble, and the wind rustle. Spiritual is about being present; that’s all there is to it. It’s about having hope and faith and being content, however you choose to get there. Mental is about knowledge, to which, I am obsessed. I never stop learning. I read, I write, I learn. If the saw is not sharp, then the blade will not cut. It’s about sleep, recharging the battery, and respecting you mind enough to give it a rest. It’s also about respecting your mind by watching what you eat, because let’s face it, you are what you eat. Cliche? Of course. True? Yes, very much. Mental bleeds into physical as your body must be worked. People are lazy and narcissistic and there are many excuses we can make as to why we’re not working out. There’s a reason I was so adamant in expressing the importance of making things fun in “30 days to rule them all” and that’s because we suck at motivation. People don’t like the zig zag that is personal growth, they’d much rather have progress be a straight line. I can say with certainty that I am happier when I work out consistently; even just going on a walk is great. Human beings are not potatoes and we should not be acting as such. Make it fun and the rest will fall in place. Finally, Social and Emotional. During a Pandemic, people are freaking out. I’m not. Why? Because I have this pillar. This pillar is the foundation for healthy relationships, a commitment to making an effort, to be there and show up. I have no time to waste with toxic relationships. To flip back to mental, life is about adaptability. Instead of prioritizing going to workshops, meeting new people and board game nights, I have shifted to video calls, messaging, and my favorite, video games. Chatting with friends while social distancing has been great and while I miss being able to go out, the damage to my health has been mitigated. If you’re not a gamer, I highly recommend it for the social dynamic.

And all these pillars bleed into one another, that is why you can’t pick and choose. If you get enough sleep and eat well, you’ll have more energy to work out, if you work out, sleep, and diet, you’ll be in a better mood to chat with your friends and if you chat with friends you’ll feel great. Spiritual is the glue that gives you breath and reason. So, all connected.

And there you have it, another article for the books. As we wrap up the month of May, I’ll be gearing up for June. This month is a great pause as we take a look at Mental Health. If you’re curious about my other articles, just type “Mental Health” into the search bar. If there are topics you want me to cover, let me know. And if you like my content, consider following, liking, and sharing among your friends. This year we’re already set to surpass 2019 in views and traffic to the website and it is my hope that we surpass 2018, which was my best year for the blog. Also, please consider donating through Ko-fi and subscribing to my Patreon. The Patreon comes with my own discord community server and various tiered rewards to make the subscription fun. At the moment, this is my only source of income, so please consider helping out! Even a dollar means a whole lot. Below is a link to my donation page:

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As always, thanks for reading and stay safe!

30 days to rule them all

So we’re stuck inside and even the strongest among us can’t self isolate forever. I’ve been in my house for almost 60 days. I went from going out every weekend to building a Utopian society in Animal Crossing. First 30 days were fine and were treated as a much needed vacation. The last 30 days? Not terrible. 90 days? God help us (But we’re not there, yet…). I have a stockpile of books and games, so it’ll take a long while to get through those. But those are only to keep me busy should I get bored.

So thus, begins my habit forming challenges. The other day I hit my 15th day streak on Playne, a meditation video game. I have an in-game fire that will go out if I miss a day. It is now my sole mission to keep that fire alive. The game itself is fun, I’ve learned a couple different techniques outside of what I learned when I did 9 months of “freestyle” meditation. I also now meditate within a range to help with motivation. If I’m feeling like I don’t have the time (during the middle of a Pandemic) I can do 5 minutes of quick breathing exercises. If I’m extremely stressed, I can do 30 minutes of writing words on paper (or in this case, actually typing in game!). All in all, I’m excited to hit day 30 and then beyond. I’m going to hold myself to at least a year of continuous meditation. Duolingo I’ll hit a two week streak as of today (which is now yesterday, because writing can take a while); I also just started coding through Codecademy. I’ve been coding off and on throughout my life, and I’ve always regretted not hunkering down to learn and fully understand it. I loved lego robotics when I was younger but my life since then has taken a very different path. As I gear up for a Masters in Analytics, I want that to change. I’ll need to know Python and SQL, so I figured now would be the perfect time to learn. 30 days to form the habit, then I’m curious to try the 100 days of code challenge going around. It took a while to find a site that worked for me, but I really enjoy the format of Codecademy from the couple days I’ve done of the free trial.

Full disclaimer, I rounded up; “21 days to rule them all” just doesn’t have as nice a ring to it and honestly, I like giving myself a buffer since I’ve been such a failure at forming habits in the past. So really, it’s just 21 days with 9 bonus days. Now that I’m close to the 21 day mark, I can speak a little more to observations I made at the beginning of the challenge. First couple days were tough. What I decided to do was phased habit iteration. I started with meditation as a base habit I wanted to form and then after a couple days I introduced Language learning, and now coding. In addition, I have tried to make a consistent habit of working out. In fact, let’s transition over to talking about my workout routine during the Pandemic.

There are typically two approaches to working out; structured or integrated. Structured workouts are typically a routine that involve high amounts of discipline and might involve running the same route every day and going to the gym to work out. This works great if you have extraordinary willpower. For everyone else, it is the reason you stop and start working out over and over again. Over the last couple years, I have gone with an integrated approach to working out. What this means is, exercise is integrated as part of your lifestyle and is not a separate activity. My first task was to make exercise fun. This is where most people stop. What I decided to do was to start bouldering; I got a discount through work and started making an effort to go every weekend. The second aspect was making it a goal to go outside once a week, once I started taking public transit, this became much easier (also shout out to Pokemon Go). And the third was to make sure I could work out at home but in a way that didn’t feel forced. So, I bought Ring Fit Adventure. Video Games have never disappointed and ring fit has been no different; it solved the motivation aspect of working out at home. Enough of a workout to break a sweat each time, after 15 days I can say I am more motivated to workout. It also has a resistance building mode I can do while watching TV, which is helping me find new ways to exercise casually. Eventually I can add on more to my workout routine but as long as I have a foundation to come back to, I should be good to go.

And that’s it! This Mental Health Awareness month I wanted to try a slightly different approach As I’ve already gone with the dark and gritty (but beautifully vulnerable). I have a couple more articles planned for the month but those need to go through the editing process (which goes a lot faster when I’m not trying to readjust my sleep schedule). So far the blog has been doing extremely well this year and I’m looking to make this the best year yet! Last year was slow but my goal for this year will be a post every two weeks. It’s what I’ve found to be manageable and I don’t want to get burnt out doing too much at once. As a reminder, if you like my content, please consider leaving a like, follow, and sharing the article among your friends! I also love responding to comments! So far, the response this year has been stellar and the blog is growing, which makes me very excited. If you want to support me as a creator, feel free to donate via Ko-fi or my Patreon. Every dollar helps, especially since I currently don’t have a 9 to 5 job right now!

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Also, feel free to reach out if you’re interested in doing a collaboration! Thanks again for reading and feel free to comment!

A look back at the last Decade

The planning phases are nearly done for my blog. I have posts planned and ideas for branching my writing outside of WordPress. It took a Pandemic, but I’m slowly getting there. As the world ends, I’ve had time to reflect on my current predicament and take stock, something I recommend everyone do periodically throughout their lives. As we delve into the new decade, I wanted to take a look back at how far I’ve come and what’s next.

10 years ago today

Twenty-Ten. My God. A lifetime ago. I was a Sophomore in High School and a scrawny cross country runner. I went to class, played video games, and ran; that was my life. Fall was cross country and come Spring, track and field. Socially awkward, I tried to impress everyone, and really only had a few close friends. I had a High School crush, someone I had known since the first grade, and life was relatively well. It was the year after my Freshman year and if my faded memory serves, I was happy. I’d go as far as saying it was the peak of my High School years. Then came Twenty-Eleven, my Junior year. This was the year it all began to fall apart. I brushed off my childhood crush and a week before homecoming found out she was dating another runner. Had I had the courage then, I wonder how things might have turned out differently. My whole love life in High School was a complete mess to be honest and what could’ve been never ended up being. My 4.0 GPA began to waver and I simply stopped caring whether I succeeded or failed. This was the year I applied for a couple colleges and chose Oregon State for my studies; it was also the year I tried to get my family to go to counseling. Looking back now, it’s clear that I was depressed, so as you can imagine, I was not in the best shape going into my Senior year.

Twenty-Twelve. Twenty-Twelve in all reality, was my ticket year. I had one singular goal; to graduate and prep for College. I grew out my hair to the point it covered my eyes and stumbled my way into College. Years of Alcohol abuse by my Father had left it’s mark and I had the foresight then to know I had to remove myself from the environment I was born into. My great escape, if you will.

Twenty-Twelve

This was my transition year. My Father, in all likelihood, was too drunk to notice I was even in college. Regardless, looking back, this was a fantastic year for me. I had successfully done it; I had removed myself from my haunting household. This was a year filled with chaos but I have always had the drive to be better and I used that as my compass. From pre-engineering to undeclared to pre-business, I had successfully transitioned to where I needed to be. The College of Business saved my life and while in the end I was ultimately pulled back to Hell with chains only Hellfire can break, I am still eternally grateful for Oregon State and the opportunities it provided me. I would say I could never repay the debt, but I’ve currently been paying that down over the last year and it’s now a much more manageable amount than it was. While I’ve told this story before, I think my experience throughout college is worth sharing. The more I tell it, the more I can see my growth and finds ways to improve even further. My Freshman year ended with a choice; continue College or drop out. If I continued, I would essentially be on my own, with sporadic funds from my parents. Dropping out would’ve been easy and I knew I would essentially be signing a death sentence for myself, so I chose to stay.

Twenty-Seventeen

… Five years later. Haha, you didn’t think I’d go over the entirety of my college career, again? Did you? If you’re curious, check out my Journey’s End series where I reflected upon my Journey through College as a final project for my Leadership class. The Twenty-Sixteen, Twenty-Seventeen school year was hands down the best year of my life. Everything that had been set in motion had come to pass and I not only realized that my dreams were achievable, but that I had actually accomplished them. Every goal I had set for myself, I had accomplished and I had become the man I had always wanted to be. Come June, when I walked, I hugged our Dean before throwing my cap up and grabbing life by the horns. But I had made a mistake and hindsight is always 20-20… For now, I could revel in my success and know, that despite every challenge I had faced, I had rose above and made it. Not simply tell myself I had made it, but actually made it.

Present Day

Ok, so not quite present day. In a nutshell, I graduated into a strong economy, and found work relatively quick. I’ve been with the same company, in the same role for the last 2 years now. On paper, I look great. And to be honest, I still believe I am in a good spot. I am ready for my next big adventure and I finally know how I want to get there. I want to go abroad to study Business Analytics or at the very least, go to Portland State University. After a Masters in Analytics, I want to further my studies with a PHD in Sustainability. And I am gearing up for logistics driven, supply chain management roles. Shame it took a Pandemic and weeks left to my own thoughts to realize this. But ultimately, I think this is where I will be happiest. I won’t know until I get there, but it’s the best picture I have had since graduation. And that was my Grand Mistake. I spent so much time doing what I thought I should do to be better, by the time I graduated I had no idea what I actually wanted. Necessary? Perhaps. But a part of me will always wonder.

In the Meantime….

I am applying my logistical and analytical mindset to this blog. Call it the missing link if you will, but I’m excited. I have time to write and I’m going to use it. The Pandemic has actually given me the courage to speak up when typically I have kept my head down and simply done my job. LinkedIn is becoming home to business related articles written from the heart (I’ve written one article, but the ideas are there!). No new poetry for a bit as I compile all the poems I’ve written into a book and publish hopefully during World Poetry month! And I’ve reformatted how I ask for donations based on feedback as I want to make it as easy as possible to support me as well as fun. I am cutting into my emergency fund right now, so any help is much appreciated. As always, comment below; I love hearing from everyone!

Payments!

This is still in its experimental phase! I am happy with what I have set up but if you have suggestions, please, please, please, tell me! How it’ll work is below is one link. Click on the link and you’ll be directed to my Payment page. Three options: Patreon, which is set up monthly, Ko-fi as a one time payment of increments of $3 so you can pay per post or whenever, and a simple payment button that’ll send the funds directly to my Paypal. In addition to the donation page being cleaned up, I will also be making it a point that if you like my content, please, please, please, share with your friends! I love having a community and my philosophy has typically been, “build it and they shall come”. Since I’ve finished up my planning phases for content flow and structure, I realized this is silly. Yes, great content is important, but sharing is part of human nature! So remember, give this blog a shout out anytime you think a friend might enjoy an article, it truly does help! And without further ado, below is the link to support this blog!

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Also, let me know what you think of the new format!