8:19

Good morning,

I figured today I would try something different, I am a much faster typer than writer so I wanted to try doing a journal entry on here and just free typing away my thoughts.

Whenever I journal I feel that I do best whenever I almost just type whatever comes to my train of thought and that always kinda pulls me into just letting my words flow out.

It seems to come with a lot more ease whenever I take the pressure off of myself when I’m journaling and just stop trying so hard. I feel that when I let go of trying to think and just let myself think is when I have my most interesting thoughts.

I feel that as of recently that has been getting easier as I have been trying to meditate more and just stop myself from thinking, its made my train of thought have a lot more clarity throughout my day.

This morning in my journal at the gym I wrote down three things I wanted to do today they were

• Make a planner
• Clear more things off my desk
• Buy a book and read 100 pages

Why do I want to do these things?

,Well I need to make a planner because as much as I have habits and know how most of my morning and night will go, I have a lot of missed opportunities to fill my day with more valuable spending of my time. I started thinking about this a lot after this quote appeared on my phone on my stoic quote widget. (really cool app by the way it is called stoic widgets and just has good little insights to think about throughout the day.)

This is our big mistake; to think we look forward to death. Most of death is already gone. Whatever time has passed is owned by death.

Seneca

To me, I feel that Seneca is not literally meaning we look forward to death, but that we’re looking forward to the future constantly, and the only thing guaranteed in our future is death. I feel Marcus Aurelius reinforces that thought process, as he was also a stoic learning the teachings of Seneca.

You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.

Marcus Aurelius

So the same way we look forward to the future, the more we do so we lose the now, so I want to have dedicated times throughout my day and week to plan ahead, hopefully, I can be more present within those moments knowing I don’t have to second guess what may come next. I guess just planning ahead more so I have the ability to be more present within those moments. I’m not sure if that thought process is somewhat contradicting but it works in my head.

If I dedicate my time to scheduling my time. Me in the future is more prepared to be present.

But does that contradict my ability to be present within the present?

I would say yes if you wanted to say “does it affect me?”, then yes. But will I have a greater positive return if I do so. I feel that it is likely, but will have to enact on it to find out.

As long as I understand that death may come at any time, and that I may be preparing for the time that death may come, I think it’s best to think no matter what, life is long but the days are short as we must eat, sleep, and attend to things necessary to life, I have to spend that time wisely.

So that I’m in no rush to anything in the long term, and patient for the future, but still being sure to take advantage of all the time I can in the short day.

8:39

(These bricks at the end of my reasoning and talking are my ‘final conclusion conversation with myself’. Once I build this conversation of reason, any time the thought comes up of not wanting to enact on a habit I’m trying to build I have already reasoned on why it is more reasonable to do it instead of not, because if I don’t then I am acting without reason and that is the biggest habit I want to be in constant effort of getting rid of.)

Gonna go shower and go through some morning stuff and think on it and continue with a different mind later. 8:42

12:42

I’m now back here, little bit of a bigger break than I figured I would be on but it’s okay it gave me a lot of time to sit back and think. I feel pretty affirmed in my conclusion of the last part talking about my first goal.

Clearing off my personal space

I have the problem of almost being in a need of personal mementos and having things in front of me that I feel I’m realizing just inputs a lot of mental clutter as I easily get distracted. At first it was just my desk but Ive decided to now make it just my personal space, so room, car, desk, the places I’m at most I want to make a space that I can effectively focus on what I want to.

I feel this is important to do because I am someone who gets distracted very often. So I figure that if i have less things in front of me to get distracted by then I’ll simply be able to direct my focus onto what may be in front of me or just whatever may be at hand.

I feel that not only will it help mental clutter but also help with letting go of past events, continue looking forward because I do find myself pondering over the past, reminiscing, more often than I feel I should be.

There is no real defined goal on how minimalist I would like my personal spaces to be, I still enjoy expressing my personality in my surroundings so I don’t want to rid any way of seeing myself within my space, but at the same time I don’t want to overwhelm myself with things that may be unnecessary in the present. I don’t think it’s bad to have the memories of things, but I feel I have too much of the ‘Just in case’ stuff that only seem to function as distractions.

Clearing off my personal space can only benefit me in the way of providing my mind space, and more clarity within my spaces of life. Continue making my bed, cleaning my living space, throwing the trash away in my car, giving my mind a good area to thrive in.

New book?

I haven’t been ensuring to dedicate time to reading every day and I know it is something beneficial to me, and I know I am spending time throughout my day that could be better spent doing something like reading. I don’t think that the time I spent journaling, meditating, writing should ever leave, but instead taking the time that could have more value of use if I was reading or any of those other habits I just listed.

I may be doing each of those positive things separately, but all together I’m building the habit of just spending my time towards more things that I find productive towards my life.

I know I have the time to read 100 pages of a book. Almost every day. Not that that may be necessary but simply to show myself that I can do way more than nothing. That I have the time do read 100, then every day I can read at least a little, not that it can only be a little though.

Reading 100 pages today is not just to read, but to show myself that I am more of capable of sitting down and reading every day and I should have no excuse not to. It benefits me so what sense would it make for me to not be enacting on it.

1:03

Closing statements

I’ll see y’all again soon, something a little bit different today but I’m just trying out new things. I really enjoyed this just being able to type away my thoughts it felt more natural for some reason which I don’t know if I feel is a good or bad thing. I guess that’s something I can think on for today.

I hope you have a great day

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