Weekly Summary # 32

A heavily imbalanced week. For whatever reason, I ran into some delays that kept me off track with my blog, so in addition with constructing two posts for Modern Paleo (yet to be published) I spent the majority of my week trying to catch up with my writing, thus pushing out other goals and fatiguing me quite a bit. No regrets, however, for what had to be done had to be done.

The best thing I learned this week is how important it is to keep useful practices habitual, even if it isn't necessary to maintain them habitually for their full benefits. Since I haven't found the need to do thought records every day as detailed in Mind Over Mood I haven't been doing them lately, and that in effect has led to me virtually falling out with the practice. Consequently, I've been very moody early in the weekly period and had trouble resolving my conflicts. I decided then that I would do a thought record in my introspection journal on a routine basis whether I like it or not, and have since experienced an uplift in my being. I might not have anything useful to introspect on everyday . . . but I don't want to fall out of my habit like I did and experience those negative results again. So once I identify such an immensely useful practice as this, I'm going to discipline myself to keep regular in it somehow; with all that I have on my to-do lists, I tend to opt out of doing anything that isn't on my daily goals agenda.

The list:

1.) Construct an outline and rough draft of that one article I neglected: Done, and I got it published too. Originally I wanted to make this much longer and more detailed, but since the series is far from over I thought it didn't quite justify that treatment yet.

2.) Look up nearby colleges and clubs: Not enough time.

3.) Look up art museum: Not enough time.

4.) Read 100 pages of Schulz and Peanuts: Didn't quite make it. It was mostly pushed out by writing, and the negative side-effect of all that effort is that I've been mentally fatigued. However, my reading so far has been giving me insights perhaps worth writing about.

5.) Read the introductions and afterwords of the Peanuts comics I've rented in conjunction with the above biography: Eh, I got the introduction of the first and skipped the afterword, concentrating instead on the interview with Charlies Schulz, and have only gotten to the introduction of the second. As an adult I do find that I'm appreciating the comics more than I did in my childhood.

6.) Assess what kind of music device I want to save up for: Ran out of time.

* * * * *

My work with writing isn't done yet, for ideally I'd like to be several days ahead to give me more time to spare in the day for other activities and be more relaxed in my writing pace, but I should catch up soon. Lately I've been thinking that this blog may be going too far off track its original intention of being dedicated to self-improvement and my life in general, which I also take as a sign I've been relaxing too lazy with a stagnant character lately. I'm thinking about some ventures I ought to take on -- and I've got some ideas, given some happenings and surprise insights -- and am overall thinking about redesigning this blog so that I can publish more varied content and be able to direct my readers to the proper sections, such as through multiple RSS feeds. That'd be a long-term self-improvement venture given the knowledge I'd need to obtain, but I'm thinking about it.

Anyhow, it's possible that I may start my country club job soon, which is very, very good, so this week I'm mainly concerned with catching up with my writing and reading, and getting back on track with my self-improvement.

1.) Look up nearby clubs and colleges

2.) Look up art museum

3.) Read to page 100 of Schulz biography

4.)Assess what kind of music device I want to save up for

5.) Read to page 50 of Crash Proof: I haven't forgotten about our economic problems. It no longer scares or disturbs me to think about it, and I should get to thinking how I'm going to prepare myself for it.

6.) Finish second set of Charlie Brown comics

7.) Write rough draft, at least, on how I became an Objectivist and atheist: Inspired by other people's testimony, I've been thinking about doing this for the past two weeks.

8.) Write an article for Modern Paleo

9.) Write an article about possible ongoing speech problem: I had a surprising insight about my speaking habits this weekly period, which may make for another self-improvement venture.

These past two weeks I've been complaining of feeling as if I'm neglecting something I should be doing, and I think I figured out what it is: self-improving. I can be content with the routine I maintaining now, but I don't feel my true and most happy self unless I know I'm optimizing myself as a person. There's only one life to get it right.