One of the key people that I looked up to when I first started on this journey five years ago was Bruce Lee, the philosopher. Years before, when I went to college, I bought Bruce Lee: Artist of Life, a book that collected his essays on all facets of life, primarily self-improvement and spirituality. In it, he writes about the beauty of water. He talked about this in an interview from 1971. Basically, water is fluid, and it becomes whatever it’s contained in. One of my biggest problems — and one of my goals to improve upon — is that my lifestyle is rigid. It’s not fluid. It doesn’t flow like water. If something happens where I’m away from my house during the night (I get a girlfriend, I’m out late with friends, or something else), I won’t be able to do half of my habits and routines. I work out, read, and write in this blog at night. Since I wake up so early so I can write in my novel, I need to go to bed early so I can get my sleep. But I’ve packed so much into my days that there’s no room for variation.

I talked to an old friend today who I met during my college days. I’ve known her for over ten years now, which makes me feel old. I expressed this fear to her today, this rigidity in my life, and I started to brainstorm some simple solutions. I’ve been meaning to write these blog entries in the morning, most likely after writing my novel. I’ve always wanted to work out in the mornings, but they’re usually always so packed already that I can never fit it in. And I can read throughout the day, regardless of where I am or what time it is. These are easy because these tasks, although essential and important to me in so many ways, are really my default tasks. They are my big rocks that I have to do every day. Like I’ve mentioned before, I’m afraid that my life will turn monotonous. What that means is that I won’t improve upon what I’ve already built because how my days are currently structured aren’t fluid enough to change.

How can I live a more fluid life? I don’t know. Maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on myself (how many times have I written that?). My friend expressed surprise when she said that she can’t believe I’m really trying to write 365 consecutive entries on this blog. “That’s commitment,” she said. I don’t want to skip a day writing, but should I be more lenient in other facets of my life? Can I not work out one day?¹ Can I eat out once a week or so and not be so obsessive about my weight? My gut tells me no, and frankly, I don’t want to. I’m afraid if I let go of one thing, I’ll let go of others. Maybe I’ll think drinking is a good idea again. Maybe I’ll try to get back in touch with her in some way. One bad decision will lead to many more, and I know I have more control over myself than that, but that’s my fear.

What exactly am I afraid of? Regressing, maybe. I don’t want to be Sisyphus. I want to better, whatever that entails. And part of finding out is studying water and seeing how I can be more like it.

I thought I was done with Windows. When I bought my MacBook Air last year, I decided to go all in into the Apple ecosystem. I was tired of troubleshooting Windows, diagnosing BSODs, error codes, sluggishness, etc. I wanted something that just worked, where I didn’t have to focus on any sort of troubleshooting and just get on with my life. For the most part, that plan actually worked. I barely do any sort of maintenance or troubleshooting on my Mac because everything has just worked. I’ve bought so much software that do various things, and my life — geekily enough — has just felt better. And that’s just on the Mac. With iOS 8 and the upcoming release of Yosemite, the integration between my Mac, my iPhone, and my iPad just got better. I love being able to take phone calls on my iPad when that’s the device I’m using. I love closing tabs in Safari on my iPad from my iPhone. That’s just cool. However, because of my job, I have had to jump back onto the Windows train.

And I kind of like it.

I’ve been doing so much research the past few weeks on advanced level, Windows-only topics like Group Policy, Active Directory, network protocols, and even some scripting and PowerShell, topics I have no use for on my Mac yet mean a lot on Windows, and I’m really loving every minute of it. A few days ago, an English teacher came to me and told me she wasn’t able to access the internet. I went to her classroom and checked out her laptop. While I was having trouble connecting to the internet myself, the teacher told me a few of her students weren’t able to logon either. Curious, I checked my laptop and my iPhone: both devices connected to the internet just fine. Other students connected just fine, too. Intrigued, I tried a few things. First, I logged out of her account and logged into the admin one. I opened the Command Prompt, tried a few commands (ipconfig and the like), and nothing. Nothing seemed to be wrong with any of the settings, the adapter card was working just fine, it just wasn’t connecting to the server. My next course was Google. For the next half hour or so, I researched the symptoms, formed my own hypothesis, observed other people’s similar problems, experimented with their solutions, failed to connect, so I tried another hypothesis, tested it, failed, tried again. Since I knew it was a network problem, I thought maybe the laptop’s wireless card — even though Windows told me it was fine — was at fault somehow. So, I went to my office, grabbed an ethernet cord, walked back to the classroom (which ended since I took so long troubleshooting), hardwired the laptop to the internet, and voilà. It worked. Again, curious, I disconnected the wire and tried the wireless. It worked, too. The teacher thanked me and I left. I was unsatisfied, though, because I didn’t know why that worked. This problem might come up again, and I want to know how to fix it and know why that solution works.

I miss this. I miss being a detective. I know that might be corny or whatever, but I always felt good when I solved problems like this. I love using the scientific method to test and try out new things and new ways of looking at things and seeing how it works. And this doesn’t just apply to computers. I stopped experimenting with myself. That might sound kind of cold or something, but listen: how do you know what you’re capable of if you don’t push yourself past your limit? How do you know what your limit is without testing yourself? For years I knew part of my weight problem was because of my diet. I spent years reading health books and researching diets and recipes and whatever else I needed to do to eat right, but for those years, I failed. Nothing seemed right to me, and there was always too much friction when it came to eating right. That is, until I discovered the Paleo diet. The Paleo diet is the simplest diet to understand because it just makes sense to me. Eat what our ancestors ate: fruits, veggies, meat, seafood, and nuts. No dairy, no wheat, no processed foods, no trans fats. I read a few books, the Paleo Diet and the Paleo Solution, and I gave it a shot. I lost a lot of weight. Since 2011, I’ve lost over 60 pounds, and I believe a good chunk of that is a direct result of my trying the Paleo diet. I wasn’t a perfect Paleo eater — far from it — but I focused on the basics, tried my best, and saw the results. I’ve been struggling with this diet recently, though, but I’ve been curious about something.

What if I’m perfectly Paleo like 80% of the time, and I eat some comfort foods the other 20%? Will I gain weight, lose weight, or stay about the same? I won’t know unless I experiment. That’s the fun part. That’s the part I miss. I’m afraid of monotony. Monotony breads complacency, which means I’ll just stay the same forever. I don’t want that. I want to keep pushing myself. And the best way to do that is to troubleshoot my life. Geeky, I know. But if it works for me, it works for me.

Organization is important to me. I don’t just need to know where everything is, I also have to know that everything’s organized in the best and most efficient way possible. I would love to have every aspect of my life follow these parameters, but I don’t. It seems like once I get one thing organized just the way I want it, I have to inevitably start using it in some way, causing it to become disorganized unless I’m actively maintaining it. Maintenance is one of the worst things in the world. I hate maintenance with a fucking passion. For example, my todo list. No matter how much time I’ve spent organizing these tasks into just the right lists with just the right contexts, the system requires I keep adding tasks because life keeps going. Every new item needs to be processed, and if I don’t spend the minimal time-cost upfront, I’m going to be expending so much time and sanity, as each unprocessed task nags at me, no matter how minimally. So how can I remedy this?

One thing I’ve found that works for me are habits and routines. If I make it a habit to process each item that comes into my todo list just as I’m adding it, then I don’t have to worry that my todo list is disorganized. Since those tasks are all processed, my mind is free to think about other things, like sex and shopping. Unfortunately, I’m not always good at this. And I’ve unfairly singled out my todo list. My OmniFocus database is arguably the most important system I have going for me since my whole life is in there. It’s really my personal assistant, always telling me what to do next. What made me bring this up is work. My predecessor left me a list of IP addresses for every single device on the network, and he typed it up in a simple Word document. I hate Word with a passion. Sorry, with a fucking passion. This is a screenshot of Scrivener in Compose mode (how I write all my blog entries):

Notice how simple that is. Just me and my text. Nothing else. And here’s that Word document my predecessor gave me:

It’s atrocious. Yuck. And look how dense all that information is. My eyes glazed over when I first saw this. Fortunately, thanks to another program by the same makers of OmniFocus, I can organize this information in a very readable and effective way. The program is OmniOutliner. All OmniOutliner focuses on are, simply enough, outlines. Here’s the same IP Schemes document in OmniOutliner:

See how I can collapse and expand rows to show me just what I want to see? See how I can also customize it with colors and different fonts at each level in the outline? Dense information should be broken up into smaller pieces, and it should be organized in a way that helps you understand the information rather than producing friction. The same thing for life.

Here come the three pillars again: mind, body, spirit. Three areas, each with a different focus than the other, each with its own organizational structure. That’s how I try to organize my life. I’m not good at this yet, but I have noticed how much more focused it makes me feel. When I’m disorganized and unfocused, I’m aimless. When I’m aimless, I get depressed. When I’m depressed, I contemplate suicide. That’s a path I don’t like being on. Am I saying this organizational fetish I have is a life or death situation for me?

Yes.

No, not really. But it helps me stay happy if I keep working at it. So I just have to keep moving because if I stop, I die. Like Crank. But not really. Well, maybe a little bit.

The process of creating all these entries, even going back to when I journaled privately, has always been the same: me, a blank page, and no idea what the hell I’m going to write. I’m not sure if this is a thing, or if this describes all writers by some inherent property in the actual act of writing, but I feel like I’m a writer that discovers what I’m going to say by actually writing. I don’t outline, I don’t plan, I just write. That’s actually how I’m writing the second draft of my novel, even though I really, really wanted to outline and plan the shit out of it. I think I’m doing okay, though. I think this trait — personality trait? — describes me, in a sense.

When I’m with people, I like being quiet and simply listening to them talk. I’ll contribute something if I have something to say, but mostly, I just like to listen. I usually don’t like contributing, especially when I have nothing to say, which mostly means, I have nothing of value to say. Most people will say that when they talk, they usually don’t think whether or not what they’re saying has any value. They just say what’s on their mind. I’ve definitely been in those situations when I talk, where the words come out of my mind faster and before the actual thought forms in my head. This happened a lot with her, which is why I still miss her. Is it a form of comfortability with people? I’ve been embarrassed (not sure if that’s the right word — ashamed?) of my shyness before, but as I’ve grown older, I’ve adapted and actually consider it one of my more valuable traits. Is that arrogant to say? Well, fuck you, I don’t care. I think it’s one of my more valuable traits because how many people actually just stop and listen? And how many people just say shit just because they want to say something?

Obviously I’m not saying I’m perfect at this. I’m most definitely not. I bring it up because I’m growing more comfortable with my coworkers at work, and I’ve noticed myself opening up more, joking around and stuff. I feel happy right now, and I have felt happy all day, and I think this is a strong contributing factor affecting my mood. Another one is working out. And yet another one is that my novel is just clicking right now. At least I think so, as well as one other friend¹. I’m happy, and that is such a precious joy to me because I’ve been unhappy a lot these past few months. Days like this, where I just feel good, are valuable to me. They’re moments and feelings I try to tap into when I’m down, and I can never build up a large enough stockpile of them. And this blog…

I have readers! I still can’t believe that shit. Thank you everyone for reading. That has contributed a lot to my mood these past few weeks, and for that, I want to thank you all. I know we’re not alone as we struggle to live our lives the way we want. We all face the same hardships and obstacles, but we also face the same euphoric highs and long streaks of plain happiness. One of my favorite quotes of all time is by Socrates²:

The unexamined life is not worth living.

I wrote that on the front page of my first Moleskine journal, and it’s something I’ve tried to live by and continue to live by for the rest of my life. I think it’s so important to understand ourselves first before we attempt to understand the world, and it’s always going to be a struggle balancing both. But as long as we try, we’ll be the better for it.

I almost didn’t workout today. On my way home from work, I remembered that I forgot to pick up my MacBook’s power charger from my office. I figured I didn’t need it, so I left it. While at home, I realized how much power-intensive tasks I do, and I didn’t want to run out of juice and not be able to write tomorrow morning. So I drove back to work, which is a twenty mile drive round-trip. Half an hour later, with power charger in hand, I returned home, tired, annoyed, and very unmotivated. I thought about not working out. I felt like one cheat day wasn’t going to kill me. It was also the Asylum’s Back to Core workout, which is one of my least favorite workouts because it’s one of the toughest. For those that don’t know, these Asylum workouts average around 45 minutes apiece. It was already close to six when I got back. My bedtime’s ten. I still needed to shower, eat, read, and write. I have to pack so much in such a short amount of time. Since I wake up at five every morning to write, I need some time to sleep. In the end, though, I worked out, and I performed really well. I really feel stronger, and the only thing that’s changed are those whey protein powder shakes. I think they’re really making a difference. Not so much aesthetically, however, but I’ll get there.

I haven’t made any progress on the goals I made with myself yesterday. I don’t feel too bad about that yet. They’re in my OmniFocus inbox, ready to be processed. Today was just busy at work. There seems to be a new problem with Infinite Campus every day, and those usually take priority over everything else. It’s really the school’s heart. Everything happens there: grades, attendance, rosters, etc. I’ve also been learning and getting into the Group Policy Manager in Windows Server 2012. This is where I manage all the users and all the computers on the school’s network. My predecessor organized this in a weird way, and I’ve been trying to wrap my head around it. There are some groups he should’ve created, and others that don’t mean anything or are redundant. There are some rules that he thinks affect only a small subset of users (hence those groups he should’ve created but didn’t), but instead affect all authenticated users. He was smart enough to pretty much install the whole network while he was here, so I figured there was a reason for his madness, but I’ve yet to figure that out. I’m also not a Group Policy ninja so there might be something I’m missing. It’s tedious work sometimes, but I’m having fun. I get to geek out at work and get paid for it.

This is another one of those entries. What did I learn today? I have a mind, and I have a heart. They are two entirely different entities and should be equally respected. I’m a heart guy. I didn’t feel like working out, but I knew it would’ve been detrimental to me in my future if I didn’t. So I did. I also know the more I lean toward my mind and ignore my heart, the worse that’ll be for me. I have to find a balance.

How? No fucking clue.

I’ve read from a few sources that it takes 30 days to create a habit. Others say it takes 66, while yet others say it takes more than that. 120 days. A year. A lifetime. In the last 30 days, what have I done? I went from not having a job to having a job. Win. I went from yearning over some girl to yearning over her less. Pass. I went from having my novel collect digital dust for over a year to finally brushing it off and writing over 8,000 words. Super win. I went from weighing 171.2 lbs on the 8th of September to weighing 171.4 lbs on the 6th of October. Fail? I’ve been doing hardcore Insanity for the past few weeks, and I feel stronger than I was then. Again, I’m also taking whey protein powder shakes on a daily basis, and it says right on the label that it should not be taken if the goal is weight loss. I wanted to lose 10 lbs a month ago, but now I’m not so sure.

What does all this mean? I don’t know, honestly. The biggest thing that happened to me was finding that IT job. I won’t get paid until the 15th, but my first full check won’t be until November 1st. I really like this job, and I know the pay will be good, and those two things were my biggest worries a month ago. I did not want to go back to a job I hated, especially when the pay was crap. At one paint last week, I was at 169 lbs, so I know my weight isn’t that big of an issue anymore. All I needed to do was start working out again. That was actually a big theme this past month: just starting. Even without a blog or a crisis that prompted it, my biggest issue in terms of productivity and happiness had been starting. It’s so difficult, but I quickly realized that once I started on that first day, the rest of the days gradually became easier.

What do I want for the next 30 days? To not fail. I don’t want to regress on the progress I made this past month. But I also don’t want to live a monotonous life. I could always add new things to do, but I know from experience that that usually hinders my progress rather than helps it. The extra workload burnt me out quicker and the whole system just fell apart. That’s when drinking and being lazy seemed like things I deserved and not the bad signs they really were. Repetition, although fantastic for habits and routines, bores me. Eventually I’m going to get tired of Insanity again, and in my search for something better or different, I’ll allow myself to stop working out. I tell myself I’ll get back on track once I find something new, but when I don’t, I just stop working out. Insanity is tried and tested. I know what I’m getting, and I love how it makes me feel after. Again, it’s just starting. I have to keep pushing myself, though. I have to, for some reason.

Nothing can change. I know that for sure. I’ve built a good foundation here. Now it’s time to add to it. To focus myself on something tangible, I have my three pillars: mind, body, spirit. I can always improve in all three phases. My reading hasn’t been as voracious as I’d like it to be. Goal #1: read more. I can do that, and I have my Kindle loaded with hundreds of good books. Do I want to lose weight or do I want to bulk up? I want to lose body fat and tone up. I need to measure my body fat, but my fat calipers broke. I need to buy a replacement. Goal #2: Measure body fat along with body weight every week to determine if whey protein powder is building muscle while also losing body fat. If not, then I have to reconsider those shakes. The third pillar has always seemed vague to me. A lot can contribute to my spirit. Writing. Working out. Meditating. Last year I read Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. It became one of my favorite books of all time. But I remember thinking, after I finished reading it, that I wanted to develop my own form of philosophy. A philosophy to live my life with tenets and whatnot to follow. My own man code, per se. That thought always intrigued me. Goal #3: Start building the framework to what my personal philosophy can be.

I’ll see what happens in the next 30 days, but hey, now I have a guide to follow. I’m not sure what my days will look like now, but I always liked finding that out.

This entry will mark the beginning of week five for this blog. That number seems so small, in all honesty. It’s only been a month. Just a month since I was crazy enough to document my life to a very small public. Sometimes I can’t believe people actually read this. On average, each of my entries gets around a dozen unique hits, which is crazy. Writing, like some of you may know, is such a solitary experience. Couple that with the fact that I’m a bachelor who lives alone in a town with very few friends, then maybe you can see how lonely I can get sometimes.

Before I got this new job, I kept telling myself that I needed to move somewhere else. Missoula is about an hour south of where I live. It’s a city. Not populous like Los Angeles, but a city nonetheless. There’s people there. There’s stuff to do there. It seemed like a good option. I also thought about moving back to Los Angeles. I haven’t lived there since I graduated from college, and I’ve been yearning to come back. I’ve been there a few times in the past year, trips that have been amazing and very memorable, but I always had to come back. But I got a good job, and my place, small though it is, is very affordable. I’m near family, and I like it here. It’s become a home for me. I do have to admit, though, that a big reason for my minimalist philosophy has been influenced by my financial situation. That means I haven’t really had the urge or the means to decorate my home and make it my own. Now, though, my mind has been seriously focused on interior design. I’ve been thinking of getting a TV, maybe a PS4 or something. I’ve also been thinking of getting a full size bed to replace the twin size one I’ve been sleeping on for the past two years. I want to spend some time and go through my photo collection, editing my favorites, and framing them. I also want to get a recliner or a couch. My home is so small that all these decisions are sincerely difficult to make. Point is, I’m changing, and that’s good.

My life sucked a month ago. I did not know what I was doing or where I wanted to go. Now my path’s a bit clearer. But it’s only been a month. There’s still a helluva lot of time left to change for the better. And that’s awesome.

I want to be different. Don’t get me wrong, I like who I am most of the time, even though there are things I really want to change about myself. I want to be different in the sense that I’m not like anyone else. I want to be my own man. My own person. I don’t care if I’m some famous guy that a lot of people know or if I die alone. I just want to live life my own way. If I want to keep a blog that I update daily and share that with a small group of friends on Facebook, so be it. If I didn’t, then I’d just be my old self with my old journal writing to no one but myself. There’s nothing at all inherently wrong with that, but I’ve found value in opening up to someone beyond myself.

Isn’t that the role she played? I guess so. I didn’t even think about that. Hmm…

I wish I had more friends here in town. Go out and meet new people! It’s hard. I’ve never been the type of person to go out on my own and just hit it off with random strangers. I’ve never been the type of person to join groups and learn some subject together, like cooking class or martial arts. I’d like to be, but I’m not. Someday? Maybe. And I’ve never been the type of person to go to a damn bar, pick up a chick, and take her home with me. Do you want that? Not really, but I want something.

What do you want?

That’s the question, isn’t it? I don’t know. Five years ago, I made a list of goals that I wanted to accomplish by the time I was 28. Out of the fifteen goals I listed, I can confidently say I’ve accomplished five of them. That’s a 33% success rate, but I haven’t been 28 for half a year yet, so things can still change. I still have time, except, some of those goals are outdated now. And the ones I accomplished where actually kind of easy, in retrospect. Underneath that list are five life goals, four of which relate to writing in some way. The fifth — travel the world — is incorporated into one of the ten goals I’ve failed to accomplish thus far in my 28th year. Is traveling the world something I want? It’ll be fun, but I don’t know how much that’ll actually change me as a person. At least, forever.

At the moment (and for every moment in the past 28 days), all I want is my friend back. I find that sad, honestly. Is it her that you want, or is it the idea of her that you want? I don’t want to live my life alone, even though I said in the beginning that I didn’t care if I died alone. I do care. But that’s just one moment in a finite series of moments that makes up my life. The best moments in my life were shared with someone else, making their best moments intwined with mine. But life keeps flowing forward and we’re pushed along for the ride if we want to or not. So we have to make the best of it, don’t we? Or else I’ll feel like I’m drowning with no one there to save me. I don’t want that.

What else don’t you want? I don’t want to be sad anymore.

I want to write every day and make a living from it. I want to design and build a house. I want to learn more languages and travel the world to meet new people. I want to learn an instrument. I want to be fit, healthy, and strong. I want to read a thousand more books and watch a thousand more movies. Most of all, I want to love with all my heart someone more beautiful than all the things I think I wanted, someone special to share my life with, to start a family with.

She may be gone, but I’m still here. I have to move on now.

I slept in this morning, and I loved every minute of it. Except for the weird dreams. I had some vivid dreams about her. That’s two days this week where she’s invaded my dreams. I’ll admit, though, that I really wanted to contact her today because of those dreams. I didn’t, but a part of me wishes that she comes back into my life soon. She made me happy when we were good, and her laugh’s the most vivid sensation I miss the most. I’m moving on, though. I want to be better than I’ve ever been. That means stronger, smarter, sexier than I’ve ever been. Most of it is for me and my own happiness, but I am human: I want to make her jealous and inflict as much pain as possible through my pursuit toward perfection, unreachable as it may be.

I’ve been feeling cocky recently, and part of it is that a lot of things in my life are clicking. The first two chapters in my novel are done. I know where I’m going, I know what I’m doing, and the whole process is fun and so, so rewarding. I love my car. Even though it only gets 15 MPG on average, which makes me feel a tad guilty every time I drive it, I love the V8 Hemi engine it has, the badass grill on the front that makes me feel like a beast every time I’m on the road, and all the space inside of it, which is excessive yet awesome. It seats eight people comfortably, or can fit most, if not all, of my stuff with the two back seats folded down. I’m enjoying my job, even though I know the next few months will be long and somewhat painful. I have a lot to learn, a lot to do, and more that I don’t even know yet. But it pays amazing, I like the people there so far, and it’s a job I’m actually eager to share to people, especially any new girls I meet.

I went to the movies today in Polson and saw Gone Girl. There was an amazingly gorgeous girl working the concession stand, and for the first time in months, I didn’t feel shy or insecure. I wanted to talk to her, but she was busy, as a lot of people came to see Gone Girl in this small, two-screen theater that seats a fraction compared to an average sized theater in LA (it has just one aisle that runs straight down the middle of the screening room, so there’s no real center seat). I went inside, watched the movie, and decided I was going to talk to her. Unfortunately, her shift must’ve ended because I didn’t see her around anymore. Mind you, the theater’s only run by like three people, so there’s no place she could’ve been. Maybe next time.

My attitude’s improving. You guys may have noticed that entries and entries ago, but it’s really hitting me now. Life isn’t over when someone you love leaves you. As cliché as this is, it’s really a beginning, a fresh start. I went back to basics, and I’m working as hard as I can to keep seeing this through. I wrote, meditated, worked out, and read today. I rewarded myself with a really good movie. I’m ready to move on, and it feels good.

One of my favorite cartoons growing up was Doug. It was one of those shows I would always watch when it was on, and as I’m reflecting on my childhood, one of those shows that shaped who I am today. I loved all the characters, from Doug himself and Quail Man, to Porkchop, Skeeter, Patti, Roger, and even the Beets. But the one thing about that show that I loved the most and that’s obviously influenced me the most is that he kept a journal. The idea of a journal is one of those things that always appealed to me. From junior high and high school, and all the way through college, I tried and failed to keep a journal. I still have many of those false starts, and I sometimes like looking back at them because I tried so hard to make something of it, to explain my thoughts and emotions at that time, but I was not able to be consistent about it. Then April 2009 came.

I was living with my mom then, unemployed, supremely overweight, aimless, depressed, and lost. I read Getting Things Done, and that helped me start getting my life organized. But it wasn’t enough. I needed something more. I’m a writer. That’s what I am, and that’s the one thing I know I can say about myself with confidence. But I wasn’t writing. I graduated college almost a year before, and that was the last time I had written anything. Then I read Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande. It’s one of those books that changed my life completely. The book is about developing writing habits. There’s more than that, obviously, but developing writing habits is what I remember the most and what stuck with me after I read it. She said something about declaring to yourself that you’re going to write at this time every day. There was also a part in there where she said to write right after you wake up because you’re too tired for your brain to tell you to stop. So, every morning at around seven, I would wake up, sit by my computer, and start writing. My goal back then was 1,000 words an entry. It jumped to 2,000 words a day when I wrote every morning and every evening. That didn’t last long. But what I wrote were journal entries. They were all my thoughts, all my emotions, all my dreams and fears, written down in a text file for me to keep forever. I’ve been keeping a near daily journal since then. Over 5 years later.

Doug Funnie would incorporate his imagination into his journal entries, which was one of those things I loved the most about the show. We all daydream (at least I hope so). I do, at least. But I never write those thoughts down in my journal. I wonder if I should. I’m a creative writer, so a lot of those thoughts are incorporated into my fiction. That feels separate from me, somehow. I’ve never considered writing a journal entry with some of the daydreams I had that day. I wonder if that’s even practical to do. I don’t remember all the little thoughts I have like that, and there are some I don’t want to share with anyone. But I miss being a kid sometimes. I’m always so serious. Always feel this need to try and think deeply about things.

I rarely act spontaneously. Maybe I should. Sometimes. Every day at 3:36 PM, maybe.