There’s the past, there’s the future, and then there’s now. Today is the first day of a new month, and I can’t help but think about where I’ve come from and where I’m going. I’m hoping to redirect a few hundred bucks this month toward paying off my credit card debt, and I plan to do that by being a bit more frugal on my groceries. I hope the Paprika app can help me plan my grocery lists along with my meal planning in a very efficient, fun, and lasting way. I did the math, and I’m planning to write an additional 9,300 words at least toward my novel. That’s a couple of chapters. The image I want to see is me sitting by my desk, Scrivener opened up on my MacBook Air, Vesper opened on my iPhone, OmniOutliner opened on my iPad, my Confidant notebook opened to my notes, and my printed novel in the center, holding everything together. That’s what I want. I want to use every single tool I have and that I’ve used contributing toward finishing the best work I can physically produce.

A few years ago I would have cringed at the thought of having so many tools scattered around me. I would have preferred to have just a laptop and that’s it. In a way, that would’ve help me focus on not only the tools I used but on the work I was trying to produce. Over the years, though, I’ve learned that all-in-one tools aren’t very good. Scrivener is fantastic for keeping the actual novel together and organized, and it has an awesome feature called Snapshots, where I just click a button and it saves everything written on whatever section of my novel I have open. I could then rewrite everything, and later, if I didn’t like my changes, I could revert back to that snapshot. That’s amazing. But Scrivener isn’t very good at outlining, no matter how hard I tried to force it to be. Instead, that’s where OmniOutliner comes in. OmniOutliner is made for just one task, and that’s to make and manage outlines, and it’s very very good at it. It’s not very good at anything else I might want it to be, like holding my novel or as a task manager.

Throughout the day, I may come up with an awesome idea I don’t want to forget. Something a character does or says or a motivation for a character or just a cool image or something are all the sorts of things I want to remember. That’s where Vesper comes in. All I have to do is press the + button, type out my thought, and tag it with Novel. Next, when I’m ready to refer to these ideas, all I have to do is press on my Novel tag, and I’ll have a list of all my ideas, nicely organized and easy to access. On the analog side, I’ve been spending the last two weeks writing in my Confidant notebook on a daily basis. I’ve written notes and thoughts and ideas and outlines and anything else that had crossed my mind that day. Many of these ideas are quickly incorporated into my daily writing sessions, but others aren’t. Some are ideas for earlier chapters or later chapters and not on the one I’m writing now. There’s something different about writing by longhand than tapping on a screen or typing on a keyboard. I access a different part of my brain, and the ideas or thoughts I get are different than when I use my digital tools. There’s science out there that describes this phenomenon more fully, which I find very interesting.

Finally, my printed novel. It’s one thing to know I’ve written 54,000 words words; it’s an entirely different thing seeing 54,000 words printed out. I’ve come to enjoy reading my work on paper and making notes or crossing stuff out or adding stuff in with my mechanical pencil. My job then is to make everything better. Make each chapter better, each paragraph better, each sentence better, each word better. And I can’t do that without all these tools I love to use. I can’t imagine trying to do it any other way.

Sometimes I hesitate to write about my writing because I haven’t shipped anything. Like, who am I to talk about my writing? I’m a nobody! I’m some poseur trying to seem more than I really am! First of all, to them, fuck off. Second of all, I’m not writing for them, I’m writing for myself. I’m learning. I’m learning what works for me, what doesn’t work for me, all in an effort to produce my best work. I’m loving this setup today, but next week? Next month? My next novel? I could do something completely different. All I know is that I want to finish my novel, and all these tools are helping me do that. Just do what you love and nothing else matters.

In this entry, I’m going to think aloud about something that not only took over my thoughts today, but has regularly occupied them for the past few years. I’m always thinking through how I do things, and I’m always wondering how I can do them better. For a few years, I loved Evernote, and I devoted hours and hours of my life to dump as many aspects of my life into it. A few years ago, though, once Evernote began to feel bloated and overloaded with junk of my own creation, I started to think about other ways I could manage this information. Around the same time, I bought my first Mac, so I also began my journey toward engrossing myself in all things Apple. After a few months I’d say, I discovered an app called nvAlt. nvAlt is a simple app that manages text files in three sections: a search bar, a list of all the notes in its database, and a text editor itself. That’s it. Because it is simple it is fast. That was one reason why I fell in love with it; the other reason was because text files were and are future-proof. Text files will last forever, and one thing that has always concerned me was the lifespan of all my digital detritus.

Evernote locked everything into its own propriety database that was super difficult to export my data from. That didn’t stop me, though. I exported all my text notes¹ into HTML format, which I then converted to text files using an awesome Automator workflow, and for the next year or so, I spent god knows how many hours processing and organizing through my literally thousands of notes and adding them into nvAlt. This project felt awesome once I finished it. However, once I did, in the back of my mind I would notice how I didn’t do anything with these notes. They just lied dormant waiting for me to read them or process them or do something with them. In the meantime, I kept adding more notes and more notes, and my whole collection of notes just kept growing and growing, and I still don’t know what to do with them. I have tasks in OmniFocus telling me to organize them one day, but I don’t think that day will ever come. It’s one thing to ensure my stuff can last forever; it’s another thing to actually do something with that stuff.

So I ran up into a crossroads of sorts. Do I want to spend all my time managing and organizing text files that will last forever but that I’m not really using, or do I want to risk going all in into a system that may not last forever, may not be exportable, but will help me do stuff with all this information now? Obviously I chose the latter option, and it involves a combination of apps and services. When I first broke up with Evernote, I replaced it with Dropbox, nvAlt, Byword and Drafts on my iPhone and iPad. Unfortunately, these services really didn’t help me be any more productive. All it did was ensure my stuff can follow me around everywhere and be around for a long time, which satisfied the requirements I set for myself all those years ago. But I want something that will actually help me be more productive. I want tools that are a pleasure to use and simply help me be better.

For about the past three months, I’ve been slowly falling in love with an iPhone app called Vesper. It’s a very simple yet very well designed and beautiful notes app. That’s all it does. Vesper was updated yesterday to support the iPad (finally), and that’s the reason I’ve begun to think more seriously about the tools I use. The guys over at Vesper are working on a Mac app, which isn’t out yet and who knows when it will, but all I know is that I want most of my notes in there. I use Vesper a lot, and I didn’t realize how awesome that feeling is. One day I’m going to write a review of Vesper and possibly a lot of my current tools, but not today. A big subject, for lack of a better word, of my text file notes are clippings from web sites I read. I have hundreds of these type of notes, but I never refer to them or anything. They’re just sitting there. Over the summer, I became a member of Pinboard, a bookmarking service like Delicious used to be but way better. I didn’t incorporate Pinboard into my workflow until fairly recently, and now that I have, I can’t live without it. All the reasons I used text files for have slowly been replaced by simply bookmarking them in Pinboard and copying the relevant passages in the notes field. I’m planning to transfer all my text files with URLs into Pinboard and deleting the text files. This, hopefully, won’t take me a full year, but I know it’s going to take an annoyingly long time. Ditto with transferring notes into Vesper, especially without a Mac app.

These tools and others — oh god, believe me there are others — may not be around forever. Pinboard may one day shut down and all those bookmarks with all those awesome² highlights could be lost forever. Vesper could one day shut down and there might not be an easy way to export all my notes out of it. Some notes I may not want to keep forever, though. Isn’t that the definition of a note, as simply an aid to memory? Which brings me to the entire theme of this entry and my whole thought process on this matter: digital permanence.

Do I want everything to last forever, especially when I have my memory and hopefully a completed piece of work that will last longer than these notes? What will the world look like when many of the world’s most important records are simply a series of 1s and 0s? We have written records that have stood the test of time, and we’re all the richer for it; but what about their digital counterparts? 1,000 years from now, will people even care to read the digital notes and bookmarks of some guy, let alone a famous author or politician or philosopher? What does a world like that look like?

I’m still alive, and I danced to some disco. No, literally, I danced to some disco. My hips where shaking, my shoulders were doing something that somewhat resembled rhythmic movement, and my feet — I have no idea what my feet were doing. But I felt good, I felt loose, and I felt amazing. It had been a while since I danced, even just a little bit, and I forget how uplifting it can be. Too bad none of you guys will ever see it!¹

I’ve had this strong itch to make movies again. Part of it is that I want to tell a story in a different medium. Focusing all my energies on my novel can be draining and mixing my routine up some seems enticing. All I have is my iPhone to shoot with, but I think that’s all I really need. I’ve been thinking of getting something like the Gorillapod for ages now, and maybe now might be a good time to invest in something like that. I like the limitations of the iPhone, and I really want to edit something using my iPad. It seems super intuitive and fun, and it’ll give me some experience with all these tools for when my class starts in April. I also had this idea of making a little short where all we see is the screen of the iPhone. Apps like the Camera, Photos, FaceTime, Messages, Calendar, Phone, and a multitude of third-party apps to tell a story with seems super fun and super challenging to do. Technology is a huge part of my life, and who knows how many hours I spend staring at screens every day. It just seems like everything happens behind a screen nowadays, and there’s a richness there that I want to explore.

I’m also eager to finally relax on my really harsh and really strict rules I’ve imposed on myself. I really don’t think I’ll be able to make it 365 days because not only will firefighting this summer make that near impossible for me to sustain, but also because I’m burning out. There are some days where I really have nothing to say, and I would rather spend those days writing a first draft of something that would become something better later. Instead, I post every random piece of shit thought that crosses my mind because I have to post something to keep that streak alive. I’ve had ideas of posting some really long and thoughtful pieces on all the tools (both digital and analog) that I use because I want to understand everything I do and use and see if I can’t improve something or cut something that isn’t really adding anything to my life. And I can’t do that with the amount of planning and time I give my current entries (which is not at all). Then I bought myself those frosted apple pie treats at the grocery store today because I didn’t want to keep depriving myself of these treats for the rest of my life. Yes, I’m not going to be eating these things every day, every week, or even every month, but every once in a while? Sure! I deserved it. I finish Insanity Max: 30 next week, for crissakes.

At the same time, I want to keep pushing myself as hard as I can until I can’t any longer. I want to know that if I stop at day 200 or day 250 or day 300, I want to know I tried my best. And if I go out to eat somewhere unhealthy or give in and drink a little bit of wine with some friends or family somewhere, I want to feel okay about it. I don’t want to feel burdened by doing so, like I failed myself or something. I want to know that I can handle myself and that these little acts of indulgence are just that, an indulgence and not a drastic lifestyle change. My lifestyle is to be as healthy, productive, creative, and hard-working as I possibly can be. Sometimes I forget that I’m allowed to have fun.

So everyone, let’s dance!

I stared at the instrument panel like nothing had happened. I turned to my right and saw a red truck stopped about 25 yards away, its emergency lights flashing. I turned to my left and I saw a white car doing the same thing. I turned the keys in the ignition but my engine wouldn’t start. I glazed over the gear selector and stared at the glowing R while I turned the ignition, and it didn’t hit me that I was in reverse. I put my car in park, took a breath, turned the ignition again and heard my engine roar proudly. I was parked perpendicular on the road, the front of my car in one lane, the back in the other. I had spun out of control, and it happened so fast I didn’t know that I escaped a potentially dangerous situation unscathed.

As far as I can remember, the drive to work was normal. It had snowed a little bit last night, but nothing I haven’t driven on before. I wanted today to be a good day that I even stopped at Dobson’s Coffee Company for an Americano. I treat myself to a Dobson Creek Americano about once a month, and today just happened to be that day. The speed limit on the highway is 70 MPH, but I usually max out at around 65 and set my car on cruise control. Traffic was slower today so I couldn’t do that. Everything seemed normal. I made my right toward Charlo, and drove around 60 in a 65 all the way until the 45 MPH left turn. It was around here that I stopped paying attention to the conditions on the road. I’ve driven this path so many times that everything I did was automatic. I was lost in a podcast I was listening to, and all I was thinking about was getting to work and drinking my Americano. After ending the left turn, I applied a bit a pressure to the gas pedal.

The rest is kind of fuzzy. I must have veered a little too much to the right side of the road and hit the snow that the plow missed. I think my right back tire locked up on the snow, causing me to lose control. My car started curving to the left, and my instincts must have hit because I turned my wheel to the right. This made things worse. When I realized things were getting worse, I didn’t panic. Hell, everything just became clear. I knew I had to turn toward the turn, and that’s what I did. I did a 180, saw the red truck driving and slowing down toward me before stopping, and stopped in the middle of the road. I knew what had just happened, but it didn’t hit me until later. I unbuckled my seat belt while pressing my foot on the break, and all I wanted to do was to get out of there. Once I maneuvered my car back onto the road, my seat belt still off, a bit of my Americano spilled on top of the cap, I resumed my drive to work.

The rest of the day was normal. Once I got out of my car and walked toward the teacher’s lounge to clock in, I forgot I missed a potentially dangerous accident. In fact, I completely forgot about it for the whole rest of the day at work, and I only remembered once I turned on my car again after work and knew I had to drive back home. That flash of fear lasted for only a second, and once I was back out on the road, I felt fine. The whole experience was intense but not really that scary. I wasn’t going to let myself get hurt; not like that. My uncle died in a car crash, and I’m not letting that happen to me.

I still have a lot of life yet to live. Stay tuned.

Continuing from yesterday’s post, I haven’t had any fun today. It doesn’t mean today was a bad day, per se; it was quite the normal day. I wore my very sexy green button up collared shirt with my sleeves rolled up, a pair of brown trousers with a black belt, and my blue Nike shoes. I’ve been really mixing up my color choices, and I really like the results. If someone would’ve told me a year ago what my preferred color choices for clothes would be, I would not have mentioned the colors I just mentioned. They’re subdued colors, for sure, but I used to be a guy that always wore blue jeans and black shirts. I’m evoooooooolving as a person, and I like it. Couple all that with my blue silicone iPhone case, green smart cover for my iPad, my grey denim and light brown corn leather messenger bag, my colorful inspirational posters on my wall, and my bookcase organized by color, and we’ve got a life where color really affects life’s texture.

I write about this today because I really have nothing else to write about. To be honest, I’m growing super weary of writing a daily entry. I’ll be hitting the halfway mark in a little over a week, and I don’t know if I can last another 180 days. I’m super fucking strict with myself, and any hint of failure causes me to hate myself. Not forever, but that short amount of time where I do hurts a lot. I don’t feel like the same person I was five months ago. I feel different. I feel better. I feel like I can buy a bottle of red wine again and drink it responsibly. I feel like losing all those people I lost was good for me because they sucked big old hairy man balls, and I’m better off without them. I feel like it’s okay if I eat out once a week, just to have some fun and unwind a bit. I do a lot every day, and I need to reward myself sometimes. Yes, sometimes I think the work is its own reward, but the work doesn’t taste good or make me feel like puking at 3 AM in the morning outside of a bar with six-shooters on the door.

At the same time, I have doubt. I don’t know if I should reward myself. That’s so wrong now that I’ve seen it written out, but it rings true to me. I have to be strict with myself so I can be sure I don’t stray from the path I’ve built. People will say that one drink won’t hurt me, but it’s not the drink I’m worried about; it’s the fact that I let myself give in to something I wanted to abstain from forever. One drink means I became lax with myself, and that affect my whole life. I take a drink now, maybe I don’t write tomorrow, and maybe I stop working out and start eating crappy Dairy Queen burgers again. Maybe I stop weighing myself every Monday morning, and a few months later, after washing away all the good work I’ve built up in the past five months, I decide to weigh myself again and see that I’ve gained twenty pounds and all I want to do is just shoot myself.

This is ridiculous, and I know it’s ridiculous, and even my mind thinks it’s ridiculous, but that emotional part of my brain makes me believe in all of it. That part of my brain is so strong that I find it super tough to ignore it and just be. So, for now, I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing. Maybe I’ll slowly start letting myself do things I’ve been preventing myself from doing, and I’ll try hard to see if I can make it work. Otherwise, I don’t know.

I don’t know.

Regular readers¹ will have noticed my not very hidden depressed mood these past few entries. Simply, I’ve been down. There was no external event that caused me to feel this way; I was just sad. I honestly don’t think I still suffer from depression, but this randomness is a common symptom of it. Actually, part of me thinks there is a reason for my sadness, but I’m not being introspective enough to really pinpoint the cause. It could be that I was lonely or tired of my routine or in need of a new routine or the food I did or didn’t eat or a combination of some or none of these. All I have to say is that fuck all of that. Life is too short for me to feel sad for no reason.

My moods are so fucking fickle, though. I had a great day, but it wasn’t that different from the past few days. I had a typical day at work, I had a great workout, had dinner, read, and watched some TV. The only thing different from today from most other days was that I made that girl I have a tiny crush on laugh, and it was amazing. But I truthfully don’t think that had anything to do with it because it happened early in the morning and my day was too busy to think about that later.

One thing I’m being a bit more active than before is with my food. I’m adding many recipes from the cookbooks that came with the various Insanity programs into my recipe app of choice, Paprika. Many of these recipes are very simple to make, cheap, and very nutritious. I bought some groceries these past few days that will help me make something new to eat, and that has me excited. I actually created a brand spanking new dessert that no one has ever tried and is super delicious and everyone will love me now for sharing this for free to you guys: grab a banana, grab a spoon, slather almond butter all over that banana, then drizzle some honey over all of it. Then eat it. It’s good. So so good. Oh my god it’s delicious. Tomorrow I’m going to add half an avocado to my protein shake and see what that tastes like. I may also make pancakes with my Primal Fuel, which sounds amazing, sometime this weekend. I might take pictures if they turn out pretty. Who cares if it tastes good, as long as it’s pretty, amirite?²

Hey guys, guess what? You know what happens next Saturday, the 7th of March? I finish Insanity Max: 30. Crazy, right? But you know what happens after that? Another 60 days of Insanity, this time a hybrid between the Asylum volume 1 and volume 2. That’s going to fun. Remember those 200+ days of Insanity I was bragging about way back when? Well shit’s getting done, you guys. Other than that week I missed because I was sick and literally couldn’t move, I’ve been working my ass off since September. Maybe that’s why I’ve been feeling down.

I haven’t given myself a god damn mother fucking break! Other than the time I drove down to San Diego and back and returned with a whole new home and all my books and other stuff and memories and credit card debt I’m still paying off. Yeah… I need to have some Fun. Capital F fun. Anyone wanna be my friend and do something with me?

Anyone?

Enough with the moody shit. Lets talk about something fun. How I’m using my pocket notebook!

Every man should carry a notebook and a pen with him at all times. That’s something I read somewhere and started believing immediately, because I’m a man and I wanted others to see me that way. Not that they wouldn’t think that once they saw me, but whatever. So I carry a Moleskine Cahier Notebook that’s covered up by this beautiful Hellbrand Leatherworks Field Notes Cover. My pen is a standard Pilot G2 pen, which I like because it writes well. Simple as that, really. I have been thinking about dipping my toes into the whole fountain pen craze that’s going on out there on the internet, but that’s a hobby I’m not yet ready for financially. So these are my tools. What do I actually do with them?

Simply, every morning, after planning out my day in OmniFocus, I grab my pen, I open up my notebook, and I write the date. Beneath that, I choose at least three tasks I want to have accomplished by the end of the day. If nothing else gets done but these three tasks, then I consider my day successful. That’s pretty much it. Sometimes I refer back to this list throughout the days; sometimes I don’t. The simple act of writing them down reinforces those tasks in my mind, so when I refer to my list in OmniFocus, I know to focus my attention on those tasks more so than the others. Has it actually helped me be more productive?

Writing tasks down has helped me develop and keep habits I thought would help my life in some way. For the past week or so, these three tasks has included the habit of working on my novel every day in the afternoon. It’s on my todo list, and it’s in my notebook, and it’s in my calendar. This is something I wanted to implement and incorporate into my daily routine, and I think I’m on my way toward fully integrating it into my life. I’m still learning how best to do this task in a way that satisfies me, but at least I’m actually trying it out and feeling it out and seeing what works for me. That’s a big deal because that’s the only way I know how to refine my habits and make them the best I possibly can.

Other than that, I don’t really use my notebook for anything else. Sometimes I would write down tasks or notes to my tasks as my day goes on, but it’s not a regular thing I do. When I complete one of those tasks, I grab my pen and cross that task off my list. It’s very satisfying. Sometimes, though, I don’t complete a task, and when that happens, I put a circle around the dash before the task. A circle means I didn’t do it. Over the course of a month or so, I can look back and see how many circles and how many crossed out tasks I have, and I could quickly see when I was most productive and when I wasn’t. That’s something a digital todo list app like OmniFocus doesn’t really provide.

My notebook complements OmniFocus. Before I started using my notebook this way, I would carry it around with me and never write in it. I think I liked the idea of carrying a pen and notebook with me everywhere, but I hated the fact that I never used it. Now I do, and I think this system works for me for now. There’s a lot more I want to do, like maybe writing more notes about each task or maybe even writing weekly and monthly goals in there to help me focus my tasks a bit better, but that’s something for a later day. Like Tomorrow. I’m thinking of doing this tomorrow. I wrote a note about that in my notebook.

That’s how I use my pocket notebook.

I’d really rather sleep right now than write. I don’t feel good. I’m not getting sick or anything. I’m just sad. I’m pushing myself too hard again, I think. Today was supposed to be a slow and fun day, which it was. I read a bunch of comics¹, played video games, and I even watched a movie². I ate popcorn and lied in bed all day and stuck to my schedule and checked stuff off my todo list and all I wanted to do was go out to a restaurant and have lunch with a friend. But I don’t have anyone in my contacts list I can just do that with anymore, and that sucks. Obviously it means I need to make new friends, and I’m trying, in my own way, to do that. I just have to deal with these times of unwanted solitude until I take charge of my life and change this.

I’m thinking of designating Sunday’s my I-can-go-out-to-eat-whatever-I-want day. My diet is pretty much “perfect” every day. I don’t eat shit, I do eat healthy food, and I cook most everything I eat. It’s getting to me, though. I’m so strict with myself sometimes that I don’t even allow myself a modicum of cheat foods. At work, if someone offers me a damn cookie or a piece of chocolate or anything sugary like that, I turn them down because I want to be “perfect.” I don’t know what the fuck that means, but what it’s turning out to mean is not having any fun. Every now and then, I want to go to the grocery store and buy some chocolate chip cookies or some candy or something like that. It’s not always. Maybe, at most, once a month. But I don’t because I have to “take care of myself.” At least that’s what I tell myself, but taking care of myself should be more than depriving myself of foods I’m craving. It should be allowing myself these simple luxuries every now and then because I both want them and deserve them.

I don’t know anyone else that’s as strict with everything about themselves as I am, and maybe there’s a good reason for that. People aren’t meant to live lives like this, except if your a monk or into asceticism or something. I can’t wait until dinner time to eat because I don’t have any snacks around when I’m feeling hungry. I want to satisfy that craving now. But everything’s connected. I don’t want to eat processed foods because I want to eat as healthily as I can because I want to feel great and look great and because buying healthy food is expensive as it is and adding to that bill unhealthy and “junk” food makes no logical sense since I’m trying to also save money and pay down my debt and live “better” than what I’ve lived so far.

I’m only burning myself out, and I’m going to have times like the one I’m having right now, where I’m sad, I’m weak, I’m irrational and dangerous. Sometimes I have to let myself be human.

Sometimes I approach these entries with the intention of writing something that would change my life. I would write something that should inspire me to do something amazing, something to lift me up from whatever is ailing me at the moment and toward somewhere better. Most of the time I fail, and that’s something I don’t internalize before starting these entries or while I’m in the middle of writing one. I truly believe that my words can change my life. In a sense, they have, but I’m still the same neurotic, narcissistic, and melancholy man I’ve always been. I try to be better because I always find something to hate about myself. My biggest enemy is me.

I’m baring my life out on a blog because I want people to see me for who I really am. I don’t want to hide behind silence, shyness, or dishonesty. I want to know that I fought for every day, that I earned all my good days and that I didn’t let the bad days bring me down. I want to know that I’ve been happy before and be reminded that I’ll be happy again. I want to see the progress I’ve made and be inspired to do even more. I want to know that my failures are just another form of growth. I want to know and I want to see that I tried to live a life of integrity, that I’ve been honest with myself and with others. That’s the only way I can truly grow and be better, and if I fail at that, I’ve failed at everything.

I hate hesitation and I hate compromise. Those are two qualities of myself that always seem to breed bad habits and bad days. Hesitation is lacking confidence and conviction to do what I know to be right or necessary. Compromise is relinquishing control over to the basest part of me. This one quality has been my biggest enemy my entire life, and when people may see me being too hard on myself, I see a road full of those bad habits and bad days I’ve travelled down too many times in the past. I try to prevent myself from even acknowledging this path, but every now and then I let my guard down, and I see that fork in the road, and I can hear those sirens singing to me to come over to them. It’s tough to resist their songs, but I have and I have to. The problem is that this is a continuous battle with no end in sight.

I want the best life for myself, and my biggest problem is trying to embark on this journey alone. I’ve accomplished so much on my own, but I’ve hit a plateau that I don’t think I’ll ever overcome alone. I think I hit it a long time ago, and I’m so used to living in it that I can’t even imagine a life without it. I’m running in place, and for the past few weeks, I’ve been running the fastest I’ve ever run, but I’m still not going anywhere. I’m deluding myself if I think that if I run just a bit faster I’ll actually go somewhere. I have to step outside of myself and accept myself for who I am if I want to actually go somewhere. The problem I’m faced with isn’t how to I can do that; it’s the fear that I know how but I just don’t want to. And that, to me, is scary.

One thing I don’t seem to allow myself to have is time. I have this drive to fill every minute of every day as productively as I can, and for the most part, I’ve succeeded in doing that. I do allow myself some time to play video games on my phone or to watch TV or some videos on YouTube or Vimeo or something. For the most part, though, my day is full with various activities that all add up toward me becoming a great writer — whatever that means. I’m really just working my ass off doing things that I want to do, which mostly involves writing. This commitment to this one goal has given me a focus I’ve never had before, but it’s also made me scared to do other things.

The other day I imagined being in a relationship with this girl that I have a bit of a crush on. She’s an amazing girl and one that I want to get to know more, but a few days ago, I gave myself a choice: would I rather ask her out, go on a few dates with her, maybe even have a relationship with her, or would I rather keep working on my novel, keep improving myself, keep filling up every minute of every day with tasks that fuel this fire within me? And I didn’t know how to answer that immediately. I do want to be in a relationship, but I think I want to see this whole journey through first. That’s how I feel right now, and it’s like I’m sacrificing my present happiness for a far greater time in the future. I’m taking a gamble here, and the only way to gamble is by going all-in. I’m all-in on my journey right now, and now I have to make sure I pay it off.

This is actually the first time I’m writing this all out, and I feel sad. My friend asked me if all this is maybe just a cop out. I told her that I didn’t know. Not really. She asked me that I’m going to have to adjust to having both a relationship and the time and focus to work on my writing eventually. This won’t be the only novel I’ll ever write. There will be more in the future, and I don’t want to be alone. But I think I need to focus as fully as I can now because I hope it’ll all become easier later. I’m forging that experience now. I’m learning what it takes, what I’m capable of, and how much of myself I need to give to produce the work I’m happiest and most proud of. Maybe it’ll be easier if I had someone with me helping me along, and encouraging me every day to do better than my best. But I don’t right now, so I don’t know what that’ll be like or feel like.

I really don’t know. Maybe I’m pushing myself too hard. Maybe I’m not pushing myself hard enough. Maybe I’m wound tight. Maybe I’m not wound tight enough. Maybe I’m right where I need to be. All I know is that I’m tired, I’ve exceeded my 500 words, and I’m ready to go to sleep. I’ll sleep on it, maybe for a few days, a week, or longer, and check back in later. Good night, dear readers.