Mario Villalobos

Year One

High School

I work at a very small K-12 school as a tech guy. I’m in charge of every single piece of technology the school has, and for a small school it’s a lot. Over 130 iPads and iPod Touch’s, over 150 laptops, and over 100 desktops. Not to mention managing the network and making sure the school doesn’t crash when there’s a crisis. I’ve been able to go from school to school, meeting elementary teachers one minute and high school teachers the next. Through this mobility, I’ve been getting to know students, and the students have been getting to know me. The seniors are actually the class who’ve gotten to know me the most since they’re the more sociable class. There’s a few guys there who always say hi to me, and it’s always a pleasure whenever I get to work on a computer in one of their classes.1

Getting to be around kids, especially high school kids, has granted me the possibility to revisit memories of the time when I was in high school. I wish to believe that my 18 year old self would be proud of my 28 year old self. I used to be so shy and so angry and so full of self-contempt and insecurity that it poisoned my life for years. Now I’m on this journey that I never thought I’d ever embark upon when I was a teenager. I thought I was stuck with whatever life the universe gave me. Nobody knew the inner demons I battled with daily and how much I’ve had to fight to simply stay alive. Nobody knew this because I never talked to anybody about it. I was shy, and I didn’t have friends I could just talk to about this stuff. It wasn’t until I started seeing a therapist during college that all of this pent up rage and pain spilled out, freeing me to be me.

I wonder how many of the kids I pass down the halls every day are going through the same things. I saw a high school girl sitting alone against the wall of the Middle School building with a sketchpad and pencil, deeply engrossed in whatever sketch she was doing. I see the same trio of senior girls always hanging out together, always sitting next to each other in their classes2, and always going home together. Ten years from now, will they be as close as they are now? I know I’m not as close with my high school friends anymore, so I don’t know.

High school is a time of discovering who we really are and who we choose to be. We’re friends with our friends because we happened to share the same classes or we lived next to each other or we played the same sports together. Later, though, we’ll make friends who share our same interests or who we met at some party and hit it off immediately or who we happen to fall deeply in love with and marry. Except for that last part, this is how it’s been for me. I know of some high school friends who have continued to be friends, who went to college together, who live together now. That’s amazing. Obviously, we’re all different, but I’m still curious to know who some of these kids will grow up to become.

I want to talk to and get to know these kids because I feel like I have some wisdom to impart to them. I’m not entirely sure why I want to, but I do. Maybe it’s because I’m 28 and I want kids of my own. Or maybe because I don’t have a social life and I just need to go out with some good friends and have fun. I don’t know.

Anyways, yeah.


  1. Yesterday, one of these guys asked me if I was on Snapchat. Reluctantly, I said yes, but we never nor will we ever exchange details. Gotta keep work and personal life separate. ↩︎

  2. Unsurprisingly, they all have the exact same schedule and play the exact same sports. Wow. ↩︎

Earn It

One of the best things about working out is the meal that comes afterwards. I always like sitting down on my chair, a plate full of food I cooked myself in front of me, and that feeling of accomplishment that pervades throughout my body. I earned this. And then I dig in, and the food always disappears faster than I would like, but that’s okay. I know I’m doing something right for my body, and my body has rewarded me with more happiness, more energy, and more confidence. These rewarding feelings never seem to be on my mind before or during my workouts, and I don’t know why I don’t let that motivate me when the simple act of doing it doesn’t.

I didn’t want to workout today. I delayed it much later than I should’ve, and then during the beginning of the workout, I just wasn’t feeling it. Disregarding the pain on my right foot, I didn’t feel like pushing myself today. I didn’t mind working out; it was just the fact that, knowing myself, I would be unsatisfied if I didn’t give it my all. A big reason why I hate the fit tests1 is because I already pushed myself in the beginning, and I know I have to push myself later because I need to see those numbers improve or else I’ll feel like I failed. So in the beginning of my workout today, I pushed through the pain and my own weariness and worked out until I slipped on my own sweat that pooled on the floor. My muscles ached, my right foot hurt, and a big ol’ smile formed on my face once the workout ended. I was done, I was tired, but I felt good.

I don’t know if there’s a secret here that I can impart to you guys. Just do what needs to be done. I know if I didn’t work out today, I would break a promise with myself, not to mention my 70+ day streak I’ve accumulated. I know that the rest of my day would be shrouded in failure and guilt, and since I know what that feels like far too well, I did not and do not want to live through that, especially since I’m in control of my own destiny. And I know that if I didn’t workout, I wouldn’t have earned my food or my rest. I haven’t had trouble sleeping in a long, long time because I try to earn them. Trying to live a life of integrity is hard but worth it.

Nothing in life is free. I like it that way. I’m not there yet, but I want to look at all my possessions and know I earned all of them. I want to pick up this object or look at this piece of furniture and feel the joy each items brings me because I know I earned it. I want to look back on my life and know that I’ve earned each and every day, and that each of these days helped me get where I am today. I want to earn today, and I want to earn my life. It’s not easy, but it is fun.

All because I didn’t want to workout today.


  1. In Insanity, before you start the workout, you do a fit test, which is a series of exercises that you perform for a minute each. You try to max out on your reps and write them down. At the end of the workout, you repeat the fit test and see how much you improved. ↩︎

Thinking About California

For weeks now, I’ve been thinking about and quietly planning in my head my road trip to California. I’ve been considering the length of the trip, including travel time, as well as cost. The purpose of the trip, mainly, is to pick up the rest of my stuff from my mom. I have about 9 boxes of books and a couple more boxes of DVDs and miscellaneous other stuff. I mostly just want the books. I’m also planning to stop by an Ikea to buy some furniture. Since the beginning, I was thinking about going around Christmas time, and now that Christmas is just a few weeks away, my thoughts have been on this trip a lot more.

One of the biggest issues I’m most concerned about is the cost. I have a Dodge Durango with a V8 Hemi engine. This is not a gas friendly car, so gas will cost me a lot. But, and this is what converted me into driving down there and not flying, the cost to drive down there and drive back with just my stuff is a lot cheaper than flying down there and shipping my books through the post office. I want my books! And since I’ll be down there anyway with my big car, a stop to Ikea seemed logical and exciting. But again, to buy the stuff I know I’m going to want for years to come will be somewhat expensive. I want a few bookcases, a rug, a new bed frame and mattress, a lamp, and an end table. All in all, this trip will cost me over $1,000. Since I know I won’t be doing this on a regular basis, I’m thinking of treating it as a one-time necessary expense that I can put on my credit card and pay off during 2015. I’ve actually been more concerned about my drive down there than the cost, in a way. The cost was something I knew I had to eat, but it still affected my decision.

Another big issue that has concerned me has been time. A trip to California, regardless if it was by plane or car, will disrupt the flow I’ve built up over the past few months. 93 days to be exact. It will take me 2 days to get there, regardless of how vigilant I am. I’ve never driven for the length of time required to get there, and even though I know I can do it just fine, I won’t know until I’m out there actually doing it. So, two days there, two days back. That’s already, lets say, three full days on the road.1 Then I’ll have to spend a few days with my family to make the whole trip worthwhile. Another part of a day driving to Ikea and actually buying my furniture, and maybe a few days up in Los Angeles to visit my friends. Realistically, I would need to block out an entire week for this trip.

My biggest concern relating to time was disrupting my workouts. Fortunately, Insanity ends on the 27th. I could spend the 28th stretching, but if I forego that and leave first thing that morning, I can spend that Sunday driving and arriving the following Monday. I can spend Monday through early Friday in California, leave Friday and arrive sometime Saturday night. I can then spend that Sunday resting and setting up all my furniture, and I’ll be back at work the next day, on a Monday. I’ll lose five days of possible work time, but I think I’ve already built up a few days of vacation that I could cash in. That’s something I’ll have to check in sometime before I leave. And on this Monday, I can start my new Insanity workout, which would be Insanity: Max 30. This workout was just released today, in fact. I don’t want to break my 200+ day Insanity goal I started like two months ago, and taking a week off seems okay, especially since I’ll be starting on the first day of the new year anyways.

That, my friends, are my thoughts that have been weighing on my mind these past few days. I know this might be a very crappy entry, but it’s a crappy entry in a long line of crappy entries. I just know I have to lay the groundwork now for this trip because I know just having my books around will make me better and happier in the long run. I’m a longterm type of thinker. Small habits that build up to big things and all that. Lets hope this trip actually happens. I’ll of course keep you all posted.


  1. A full day one day, part of a day the next. ↩︎

Accession

At the end of every day, when I’m lying down with my laptop on my lap, my fingers on the keyboard, and I’m thinking about what to write about for my blog, one of my first maxims, per se, is to try not to repeat myself. When things are going well, however, my bank of ideas always seems to be empty. I know I touched on this a few entries ago, but I just wanted to reiterate that again tonight because things seem to be going well still. I’m hitting my targets every day, I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing — writing, reading, working out — and I’m generally, simply, happy. I have no complaints. Well, scratch that. I guess I do.

Since things are going so well, why not try to shake things up a bit and add something new to my routine? I know I’ve had that thought flit across my mind a few times in the past few days, but I never took it seriously enough. It wasn’t that it was a bad idea; my mind was just on other things at the time, and since I didn’t write it down, I forgot about it. Then it would come again, and I still didn’t write it down. Hell, this is a good lesson for me to internalize. Why in the world have I bought these notebooks if I’m not using them? Craziness.

Anyways, I have hundreds of tasks on my todo list, many them as larger projects that I haven’t made progress on in a while. Some for months, others for years. They’re projects that aren’t important for me to do but are still things I would like to do at some point in time. Most of them involve stuff on my computer, others are bucket list-level items, and others involve me spending money. I know there are “rules” out there that say if something’s been on your list for X amount of days, be it 2 weeks or 2 months, and you still haven’t made progress on it, then you should assume that you’re never going to get around to it and you should just delete it. I never really subscribed to that idea. Some stuff, yeah, I would delete if it no longer applied, but there’s stuff you might want to do someday. Those are the things I’m talking about.

The thing about my current routine, though, is that it takes up my whole day. There’s very little wiggle room for me to add to it unless I take away other things I use my time for. And the one thing that I know I can cut but god dammit I don’t want to is television. I can save a few hours every day if I stopped watching television. I watch at least 2-3 hours of television a day, and writing it out makes it seem like that’s a lot. But is it? I watch an episode of television in the morning during breakfast, after writing 300+ words in my novel. I think I deserve that. I watch another episode of television after work. I don’t eat lunch at work, so I usually drink my Primal Fuel shake while watching television. That fuels me up for the workout I do right after. Then during dinner, after showering and cooking the meal myself, I watch some more television. Food and television seems to go hand-in-hand, and that seems super normal to me. I live alone, I don’t eat with anyone, so television keeps me company. Is that sad? I don’t know. I am sad that I’m thinking about cutting out television. Now, is that sad?

I guess I have to think about my priorities. If I think about the three pillars — mind, body, spirit — and I couple them with the three things I have to do every day — reading, working out, writing — I can see that I already write twice a day. Would adding more writing to my routine make me any better? I do want to write more in my notebooks, mostly just ideas and thoughts and nothing so structured and formal like this and my novel. So, maybe. I know I can’t workout any more than I already do. One Insanity workout per day is plenty, and last month when I did two per day, I almost injured myself, so I know for sure that that was plenty. So, no for that one. Reading? I know I’ve said I can read more, but I usually don’t. I read for an average of 30-60 minutes a day, but not all at once. It’s spread out across the day. Maybe I can read more.

Hey everyone, thank you for following along on my thought process there. I’m going to try to add more reading to my day, just to make my routine a bit fuller and more fulfilling. Maybe by filling my head with more ideas, that’ll make my entries more interesting. Win-win. I’m also going to try to cut one of my television watching times by one and read instead. Possibly my after-work snack time. I’ll let you guys know how it goes.

Maybe.

Keep Moving

Move your feet.

When I was younger, I almost drowned. I was at the river with my family. My dad brought his fishing rod and simply fished. We helped him catch some crawdads that he could use for bait. He taught us how to fish, but on this day, I really wasn’t interested in fishing. I just wanted to swim. So I did.

We weren’t alone. There were other people there, families with their kids, just trying to relax and have fun. It was a beautiful day in Southern California, but they happen so often there that I took them for granted while I lived there. This river was on the side of the road, so it crossed underneath it from one side of the road to the other. I remember looking through this tunnel and thinking how dark and scary it looked. I didn’t want to be anywhere near it.

I remember I liked catching crawdads. They were so easy to catch, and my dad taught me that they were delicious. Maybe that’s where my love for sushi comes from. I remember swimming in the river, sitting down on the shallow areas and simply enjoying the sun. The river current was soft and gentle, and I remember letting it take me away sometimes. I remember letting it take me, and I closed my eyes and enjoyed the sun on my face, the sounds of laughter coming from the kids, and the babbling sound of the river. It was all so peaceful. But then I remembered the tunnel, and when I opened my eyes, I realized the current took me very near to it. I tried to stand up but the place the river took me was deep, and I couldn’t feel the floor. I panicked.

I tried to swim away, but I was a horrible swimmer, and all I did was make things worse. The current took me deeper, and I remember lifting my head up until my face was parallel to the sky. The water was up to my neck, and I remember thinking about dying right there. The thought just crossed my mind, and I imagined my mom crying. That thought broke my heart, and I didn’t want to die, so I extended my body as far as I could until my toes barely scratched the surface beneath me. I flapped my arms against the current while tip-toeing along the surface until it rose. I ran ashore and sat down until I caught my breath.

I looked around me and saw that nobody looked at me. My father kept fishing, my brothers kept swimming, and everyone else lived their lives with no knowledge of what might’ve happened to me. I didn’t tell anyone what happened, and I haven’t spoken a word about this to anyone until just now.

I’m not sure why this memory came back to me tonight. For some reason, the three words that began this entry flashed across my mind, and I thought I was going to talk about how we must all move our feet to keep moving forward; I thought I was going to write about football, how running backs have to keep moving their feet to fight for every yard and how we all must be like running backs when it comes to accomplishing our goals; and I thought I was going to mention the flowing river and compare it to time like so many writers and poets before me have done, and how we must keep moving our feet because even though time keeps moving regardless of what we do, we can dictate where we go rather than be taken somewhere by some other force. Free will and all that.

Instead I wrote about this memory I haven’t thought about in a long time, and how much more I liked that idea than the others. We have to keep moving our feet and fight for every inch because otherwise we’ll be letting some other force live our lives for us. We have to live the life we want, and the only way to do that is by moving our feet.

Unsatisfied

It’s been 90 days since I started this blog, and I feel good. I’ve been consistently spending every night for the past 90 days dusting off my word processor and typing away until I’ve written an entry I’m happy with. Sometimes my editorial side tells me to keep improving what I’ve written, that this sentence here doesn’t flow or sound right, so I rewrite it until I’m happy. But then there’s the lazier side of me that just regurgitates an entry and calls it a night. I’ve been consistently writing every night but I haven’t been consistently hitting that level of quality I know I can achieve. Am I being hard on myself? Maybe. But that’s the only way I know how to not be complacent and be more motivated to be better.

One area I know I’m being hard on myself is my body. I’m going to get real personal now, so if you’re weirded out by that, run away now. For the past week, ever since I started Insanity: the Asylum volume 2 on Monday, I’ve noticed my body getting harder. My biceps are harder, my chest is harder, and my abs are harder. I’ve never been in this good of shape before in my life, so this is all new to me. It’s my abs, though, that I’m more hard on myself than I should be. I still don’t have a visible six pack because I still have some belly fat around my waist, and those lower abs are tough as hell to work out. But the top half of my potential eight pack is visible, and that’s the part I keep feeling and checking out. I should be happy that I have that, but I feel unaccomplished. It feels like I made it half way to my goal, and I should not be happy with that. I should be happy by achieving my goals. I never looked better in my life and yet I’m still unsatisfied.

If I ever accomplish all my goals, if I look the way I want to look, if I write the way I want to write, if I become published and forever have a job as a writer, if I ever accomplish all of this, will I feel unsatisfied still? Will I always be reaching for the unreachable? Is there no peak to that mountain? Will I be cursed to forever roll that boulder up the hill and never ever reach the top? Or am I just thinking too much? I’ve been told I think too much. But I feel like I don’t think enough. Funny, right?

Sixty days ago I gave myself three goals I wanted to accomplish in thirty days. I never did accomplish them fully the way I thought I wanted to. Part of me forgot about that. I don’t always accomplish my goals because I’m always evolving. I’m always changing what I think I want, and then when I get it, I come up with new ways to be even better. I’m always trying to improve, and I think that blinds me sometimes from other areas of my life that I could or should be focusing on. I know family and friends who know me can tell me of a few things. But I live alone and I spend most of my time alone and all I have is me, and these are the things I think I need to be better. I don’t know. I’m happy, and I feel good, but I also feel unsatisfied. Something’s missing.

Indulgences

One of my favorite snacks that I just recently started making is to take a banana, remove the entire peel, and drizzle honey on top of it. It’s so good, and it feels like an indulgence, but since it’s essentially healthy for me, I didn’t feel guilty after eating two of them tonight. Another one of my favorite snacks is homemade popcorn. Since I don’t own a microwave — nor do I ever plan to own one — I buy the stovetop type. It tastes better than the microwave kind, I think. Another one of my indulgences is my love for hot sauce. I love Tapatio and Sriracha, and I put them on everything. Before a few months ago, my fridge wouldn’t be caught near harboring these two hot sauces, nor would my pantry ever harbor popcorn. I would have felt too guilty if I let myself indulge in these simple pleasures. Now I don’t, though, and I’m wondering what’s changed.

I can’t be perfect, and I can’t pretend I’ll ever get there. Hell, I don’t want to be, even though that is what I used to feel. I would feel like I broke some promise with myself if I let myself indulge in something that wasn’t healthy and nutritious. I’m happier, though, with these indulgences, and I think I need to allow myself that sometimes. If I’m laser focused 100% of the time, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, then I’m eventually going to crack much sooner than later than if I cut myself some slack and let myself break some rules and have some fun.

Today I could’ve read for maybe an hour longer than I did, and I could’ve transcribed more pages from the Great Gatsby, and I could’ve focused on maybe one or two more difficult tasks on my todo list, but I didn’t. I popped some popcorn, grabbed my laptop, lied down on my bed, and watched some TV. I had a good day at work, I had a 30 minute stretching workout for Insanity, I read for maybe 15 minutes, and I didn’t transcribe any page of the Great Gatsby because I wanted to relax. It’s Friday. I get to sleep in tomorrow. I have my snacks, my free time, and my night all to myself. Why not celebrate a great week with some fun?

At least that’s what I’m telling myself today. Tomorrow I could feel guilty and push myself harder to make up for the failures of today. It’s happened before, and I’m confident it’ll happen again. How can I let myself let go of that? Why can’t I just be sometimes? Maybe this is one of those things I need to focus on as part of my journey to get better. Maybe I get to be better by letting myself have days like today, where I can relax, regroup, and refocus my energies on another day. Maybe I need days like today so I can just breathe, not realize it’s been exactly 90 days since I last talked to her1, and instead spend some time with some fictional people and indulge on other people’s problems and their attempts to make their lives better.

Or maybe I’m deluding myself and just being lazy because I wanted to be lazy today. It could be as simple as that.


  1. She doesn’t even seem real anymore. It’s like I’ve woken up from a dream, and I only remember bits and pieces of it, and my only recollection of it is that feeling of knowing I had a dream but not remembering what it was about. ↩︎

Happiness

I’m having fun right now. I’ve hit this groove and everything feels fantastic. My job is going great, my novel is moving forward, my body is looking better and better, and my life feels good. All this means is that I have no idea what to write about. I’ve been lying in bed staring at my screen for close to thirty minutes, and I have not been able to focus on a topic or an idea to write about. So I just thought I’d write about what I’m feeling at this moment, and that’s simply joy.

I realize how ridiculous it may seem that I can’t write if I’m feeling good, and for the most part, I’d agree with you. But I know I didn’t start to love writing because I was a happy person. I wasn’t. I started treating writing seriously when I wasn’t happy. It was my escape route toward releasing all the emotions I tended to keep bottled up inside of me. They used to leak out in angry outbursts that hurt my family and my friends, but the more I wrote about my feelings, the calmer I became. Some people have told me they like my company because of how chill and relaxed I am. Hell, one of my college professors told me in front of our class one day that he liked my presence because he always felt calmer around me. I think that’s because of writing.

I love this blog, and I love that I get to write in it every day. For the majority of it, though, my mood has been low. There have been many times where I’ve written some incredibly happy pieces, but I started this blog during a very low place in my life, an event I still haven’t recovered from fully. Many of my entries were written when I’ve been sad. I’m way better than I was when I first started, but I’m not cured, sort to speak. But then there’s days like today where everything just clicked, and I get to go to bed in a good mood. I’m not as tired as I was last week, and that’s a great thing to celebrate.

I don’t know where I’m going with this. I don’t even know what I’m trying to say with this entry except that it seems my goals that I set for myself when I started this blog are finally showing themselves. Every little habit and routine that has built up over the past 88 days has come together to form this state of being I’m living through right now. And that’s plain happiness.

Maybe the secret to being better is focusing on the things that make me happy since happiness is one of those emotions I covet more than any other because it used to be rare for me. Now I want to lie here and experience the pleasures of it and focus on living a better life with this amazing feeling coursing through my veins.

Balance

I’m driven by an internal conflict raging between cautiousness and carelessness. If I’m too cautious, I never do anything of value or worth remembering. I’ll be living my life too scared to take any steps forward because the familiar is comfortable. I’m used to people walking all over me or I’m used to living alone and never asking that girl out or I’m used to being overweight, so why bother eating right and working out. On the other hand, if I’m too careless, then I’m never taking the time to stop and think about what effects my actions will have to myself and to others. I could be so excited to jump out of that airplane that I forget to check if I even remembered to put on my parachute.1 I could be eager to ask the first attractive girl I see and not realize her boyfriend standing right next to her. Next thing I know I’m on my ass with a broken nose.

I don’t think anyone knows what the right thing to do is in most of the situations they encounter during life. I think we’re all struggling with knowing what the right to do is, so we’re all battling between being too cautious and not doing anything or being too careless and doing something we will regret later. Trying to find that balance is something I’m struggling with all the time. When should I do this or when should I do that? Should I just do it? Should I step back and wait for a bit, think it through, and then do it? How can I know to do the right thing at the right time? Is that even possible? How much should my gut play into this? Is that the best measure to base all my decisions off of? I don’t know, obviously, but I like asking all these questions.

I don’t like it when I spend my free time dwelling on my past mistakes and fantasizing about ways I could’ve made those situations better. The reason I’m no longer friends with her is because of my carelessness. But the reason I haven’t moved on yet is because of my cautiousness.2 I’ve lost friendships in the past because of my carelessness, and I truly believe I could have more and deeper friendships with other people if I was just less cautious and more active about it. I guess another way to view this conflict is between extraversion vs. introversion. I like spending time alone, and sometimes spending time with people for a long period of time is exhausting. On the other hand, I come alive whenever I’m with good friends. I love talking and listening and having fun. Again, there’s a balance missing in my life, and I just need to find it.

How? I don’t know, but I think vigilance and commitment to see this through are required. What do you guys think? What do you guys do? Any help would be greatly appreciated.


  1. That’s a super silly example, but I like the visual of it in my head, so I wrote it down. ↩︎

  2. Ask me privately if you want to know what I mean by this. ↩︎

Keeping My Word

I try to keep myself accountable with both my actions and words. When I work out, I try to have some integrity by pushing myself as hard as I can. That’s the only way I’ll earn both the body I want and the sweat that drips onto the floor. Whenever I say something, either to myself or to someone else, I try to make sure I do whatever it is I said I was going to do. I’ve rarely said I’ll keep my word to someone else aloud because I try to be a man defined by my actions when dealing with people, and a man of words through my writing. Am I perfect at this? No. Am I consciously thinking about this all the time? Again, no. This is one area I’d love to improve upon, and one of those things I’ve thought about on and off since I was a kid, when I first started thinking about becoming a man.

To me, my todo list is an extension of keeping my word with myself. It has everything I’ve promised myself I’d do at one point in my life or another. In my todo list app of choice1, I can set both due dates and start dates. Tasks with due dates are due today. For me, I mostly use due dates for my routines and workouts. These are the tasks I promised myself I’d due today. If I skip these and fail to accomplish them, then I broke that promise to myself. The world does not end and I will not cease to exist, but that’s how I try to treat it if and when I fail to keep my word with myself. Dramatic? Maybe. But it works. Start dates are those tasks that will only appear on my todo list on the day I asked it to start appearing in my todo list. OmniFocus allows me to create Perspectives, which are customizable views inside the program that shows what I want it to show. In this case, I have one called Today that shows me all my due items and deferred items with a date of today. This is my main list, and the one that shows me everything I need to worry about. A list with thousands of tasks is reduced to just a dozen or so. That’s powerful, and one of those tools I love to use every day.

Currently, whenever I tell someone something that I’m personally accountable for, I keep that memory in my head. I don’t write it down and I don’t repeat it to myself over and over until I’ve memorized it. I don’t have a system in place where I ensure I don’t forget this promise in the future until the obligation has been fulfilled. I’m not sure why I don’t. I’ve occasionally written some promises in OmniFocus, but those times have been rare. I’m not sure how to remember the times I give somebody my word other than relying on my memory. If I tell somebody I’ll never lie to them2, I’ll try my damndest to never lie to them. I could use a notebook, either analog or digital, to do this, but is that the best way to do this? Shouldn’t I just know to keep my word? I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.

This is one of those entries I’d wish I’d spent a bit more time on to think about more fully. On the other hand, this feels like one of those subjects that I’ll be thinking about for the rest of my life. I do have to ask myself, though, why I want to be a man known for keeping his word. Is it because I want people to trust me? Is it because it’s the right and honorable thing to do? Is it because I’ll feel really good about myself? A bit of everything? I don’t know. I’ll need to spend some quality time reflecting on this. I’ll try to keep myself accountable with myself by making sure I keep my word to myself.3 I would also like to ask my three readers to try to keep me accountable, as well. So if you can, ask me how this is going a few weeks from now. Maybe add it to your todo list app of choice?


  1. Sorry I’m delving into the intricacies of OmniFocus, but it’s the app I use and love every day. In total, to buy both iOS versions and the Mac version, I spent over $100 for this suite of apps. I treated it as an investment because that’s what I’m doing — I’m investing in myself. I suggest you do the same. ↩︎

  2. Just an example, and one of those things that doesn’t fit my todo list app. “Don’t lie to Friend A” doesn’t seem like a task I’ll ever check off. At least, not until I die, in which case it won’t matter anymore. ↩︎

  3. I’ve come full circle! Ha. ↩︎

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