Reading And Writing

In addition to this blog, I've been keeping a private journal now for over 4 years. I started it because I wanted to work on a couple of things in my life. I just went back and re-read the last couple of months and a few things jumped out at me.

• I highly recommend journaling. When you go back and read a chunk of your life, you can start to see the circles in your thought patterns. It's hard to break old habits, but it helps when you watch yourself do them over and over and over again. For me, I can't imagine being able to make changes without this.
• I saw an evolution in myself in the journal. It happened too slowly for me to notice it living day-to-day, but reviewing two months or so revealed the change. It was encouraging.
• It's all about the time scale of your self-awareness. For me, I don't think I can see patterns that repeat every 7-10 days without journaling. They happen, but I can't identify and correct them.
• Journaling needs to be paired with reading. I can see from my entries 2-3 years ago that my writing simply reinforced my bad habits. That time was spent more in rationalization than change. It wasn't until I consumed a couple of really good books that I could get out of the rut.
• Finding the right book takes a lot of time. They may all talk about the same kind of thing, but you need to find one that speaks to you the right way.
• Find a social circle that will support your changes and with whom you can have intimate conversations. For me, it's been my Catholic Cursillo brothers. Without other people, even with books, you can climb into your own mind, shut the door and live there in the dark, thinking it's the light.

I also found something else, something more personal. I've been reading and rereading self-improvement books over this time, ones about self-discipline, forgiveness, prayer and more. At the end of one of my entries, I had given thanks to God that the authors had shared what they had learned in the form of a book. They kept me from having to learn from their mistakes by making tons of my own.

That encourages me to start a project that's been rolling around in my mind for quite some time - writing a book. I think I have a unique take on a topic and a unique set of life experiences that will help create content that's original and perhaps worthy of someone's time.

Or maybe it will just keep me off the streets for a while.

If I'm going to write a book, the first thing I'm going to need is a beard. Since I can't grow one myself, I'm going to have to learn how to glue a fake one on my face.