Day 397 - Finishing a post

I commit myself to finish this post.

I have a long-standing behavioral pattern of starting lots of little projects and not finishing them. For example, I've now got 4 draft posts starting with "Day 397 - ..." Some of them have have only a sentence; others have enough content to be published.

An important question = WHY?! Why am I doing this? There are several angles to take on it, so I'm going to methodically work through them.

1)   Trying to blog about too many angles of a particular topic. This is what happened last time, and what I am now at risk of doing, but this time, I'm committed to finishing. When unexpected angles, dimensions, facets, factors, etc. come into play, suddenly the whole idea of the plan can become shaky. It's like the mind is driven to reach a goal within a rigid plan, and as soon as things aren't going as expected, then the drive vanishes and the beginning never meets the end.

2)   Nurture. It's far too easy to just blame my parents, but I can see similarities in myself and the way I approach projects and various activities in life. I could go on to make comparisons, but that's not direction that I'd like to take my writing. The key within this is to recognize the similarities between Self and parents/whomever, write and expand our understanding about the strengths and weaknesses, and then TAKE RESPONSIBILITY to leverage our strengths and strengthen our weaknesses.

3)   Focus. I have 11 tabs open in my browser, not including this one or the other 220 I have stored in my OneTab extension. Like I said, I have an issue with finishing what I start. Fret not! I've got this point in my sights and I'm not backing away. To stay focused is simple (see the first 7 words in the post). And if that fails, investigate what went wrong, and start again with a fresh commitment. Why is this so powerful? Because Self has all the power, unless you give it away through accepting and allowing mental programs to drive your thoughts and so your Self.

4)   Prioritization. Without it, we can cast our vision too wide and quickly become overwhelmed by it all. My relationship with the sensation of overwhelmingness has typically been avoidance. As soon as things become "too much," I turn in the other direction. So, "too many responsibilities to do right now" = avoid all responsibility and find bliss in a game of Sudoku. It hurts to write. Self-Honesty is easy, said no one ever. Solution = orient to only the top priority and go for it. If a higher priority comes up, then focus every fiber of your being on that task until it's done so that you may return to the highest priority you were previously working on.

5)   Habit. Procrastination is not just something to take pride or shame in. It's also a habituated behavior. The mental pathways that lead to this behavior over and over again become favored in specific situations. Throughout my school years. I did what I wanted to do after school, and I did my homework (sometimes very) late into the night. This was my preference, and whatever the negative consequences were, I simply wrote them off for years on end. Now, the pattern is basically the same, except now, I've got a new starting point: Do what is best for all. So, it's not just me considering me anymore. To build my future and create significant value for others, I need to shed this habit. How? Self-forgiveness and corrected application commitments...work damn well.


Wrapping it up: I realize now that I don't have to have the perfect post...

6)   Perfectionism. Almost forgot it. I've intentionally left the above line to show my willingness to no longer trouble myself with the impossible goal of perfection defined in comparison with the ideal. This haughty goal takes a lot of energy and has gone on too long. Enough! The correction is in realizing that what I've written so far is already perfect within the process of perfection. Meaning, it doesn't have to be perfect now, but through continually applying myself and adjusting things as I go along, I will ultimately get as close as I can to perfection. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is living to your highest potential.


It is important to realize that forward movement is essential to becoming a success in any endeavor. Trying to reach perfection in one fell swoop and giving up if any obstacle comes up is a recipe for regret. Practice the writing and Self-honesty (@DIPlite). Move within imperfection while striving for a well defined outcome, and be ready to parkour any obstacles that stand in your way. Be ready for anything. Focus on the outcome you want, and focus on the solution when problems arise.

Creation is a movement and it doesn't always go as planned. Expect the unexpected and move like water.

source: garinkilpatrick.com

Day 373 - Consistency is KEY: Realigning What I Want

So there is this point that's been opening up for me in my past few blogs (Day 372, 371 & 370), and it just keeps getting better. It is becoming increasingly apparent how exactly I'm automating my behavior, how I subscribe to a particular repetitive choice. A new dimension opened up for me just a moment ago: This feeling of need to finish what I've started.

I typically shame myself for not finishing what I start, and I've for a long time reconciled this personality flaw by calling myself "overly ambitious," which is really just a fancy way of saying 'lazy'. The more I dig at this point, the closer I get to locking in that unifying solution, that complete picture. But even here, I see myself standing in separation of the solution, placing myself structurally 'in need' of a grand solution, instead of seeing, realizing and understanding my self-responsibility to enact the commonsense best for all solution in moment by moment living.

Moment to moment: herein lies a great key to success. Why do I get caught up still in projecting an idea of success and then become anxious about how to get there? Why do I focus so much attention on fear of failure? Am I really so caught up in defining myself by external event/judgments? Is it not obvious that moment to moment, consistent application is all that is required?

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I will not reach the goals that I see myself achieving, because in this, I am placing myself in separation of that achievement and thus am in relationship to it. This relationship is oriented through desire and/or fear, 'what ifs' and whatever energies that I am most comfortable participating with in my mind to keep me from stabilizing myself here.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to see, realize and understand that the here moment is the only moment where I may live as I want to live. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to diffuse my ambition through a cycle of mental participation, instead of realizing my responsibility to create in the physical in the one, here moment.

Specifically, I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think, "I can't do this right," "I don't know what to do," "I don't know how to be successful."

Ahh, I'm caught up in the how...classic mistake. What is my why? Why do I want to be consistent and achieve success? Do I really even want to make a success of myself? YES, so why not make a movement right now to define my hows and get it done. Translate my ultimate why into smaller, more practically applicable steps, and make them my habit.

This is the power of habit creation! What is the 'why' behind my bad habits? Forgive them. Why do I want the good habits, and why aren't I acting now to achieve my goal? Find the resistance points. Forgive self for accepting and allowing these self-created limitations to put a damper on my deepest motive. Live the correction immediately.

I am an expression of physical material in every moment. The trail I leave is composed of my every physical action I make within Earth's Journey through space-time.

What do I stand for? What is my ultimate why? And why am I not living every moment consistently in alignment with this?

A taste of my investigation. Hope you've enjoyed.

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Day 336 - Sleeping Awake

When I'm resisting a particular task or set of tasks, and I do not direct myself to work effectively, one of my mind's favorite ways to deal with this situation is to send a signal of tiredness. If I follow this pull to the bed, then I end up losing a lot of time. I certainly could have pulled myself together and finished at least one of the responsibilities, but I went for the feel good instead.

Lots to open up here. I can look at the relationships toward specific tasks / responsibilities. I can look at past moments where I've initiated tiredness. I can look at the practical process of 'pulling myself together'. With understanding there is a temporal process required to physically change the patterns that constitute oneself, I commit myself to finding any way I can make a small change in alignment with the goal of becoming the directive principle of my resting.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe in the thought "oh, let me just rest my eyes for a moment."

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to lie to myself and hide the risk of falling asleep when I given into a tiredness moment.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think I am able to remain in control of my mind when I give in to tiredness.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize there are practical physical support steps I can take to snap out of a tired state of mind, such as a cold face wash or a bit of water in the eyes.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel unable to direct myself out of the tiredness. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize that this tiredness emotion that washes over me is a product of the mind and only as powerful as I allow it to be.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to place myself in a victim relationship to the tiredness energy.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not take responsibility for the tiredness energy, stand one and equal with it, and direct myself within a breath stability.

When and as I see myself nodding off while facing a set of tasks, I stop I breathe. I realize that I am going into a familiar reaction of avoidance through tiredness. I commit myself to flag this point, to take a breath, and really consider all of what is going on in this moment. Where am I going? How can I move myself into a directive awareness to stop this energy possession?

When and as I see myself "resting my eyes," I breathe and commit myself to an actual agreement of how much longer I will rest my eyes. I realize that there alternative solutions to warding off tiredness besides just sleeping it off. I commit myself to discovering these methods and baby steps toward stabilizing myself as a directive force.

When and as I see myself as inferior to my tiredness, I stop I breathe. I realize that I created this feeling. I commit myself to standing one and equal with my feeling tired, and directing it/me as the totality of myself in alignment with what is best for all. Get it done!

A key point within post is "taking baby steps." I'm now becoming increasingly aware of how I will not change if I do not change, but to Change can very easily seem like "too much." Then I get overwhelmed and resort to something like avoidance through tiredness. I am not finished with my relationship to sleep, but today was a step. Process happens one step at a time. Be patient with yourself. Change through tiny steps if necessary. To look back on my life and realize all the moments I could have changed but didn't, it's going to be displeasing. Solution = figure out how to take one step at a time.

Thank you.

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Day 310 - Splurge Time

I create a feeling of being able to splurge a little with my time whenever I've "been good." Kind of like a dietary splurge when one has been eating healthy, why not treat oneself to a little cheat-treat? It's a form of self-deception and it adds up more than I had realized thus far.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that it's ok to justify my resistance toward work and being productive after I have accomplished something.

A form of this came up today with my friend. We both agreed that we experience some kind of "I'm spent" and unable to do anything more after a day of work. It's a creation in my head. It probably stems back to when I was rewarded for being good as a child. I formed a habit of expectation. And it's even interesting to take a step back and look the design of reward after going through something undesirable. Instead of investigating the relationship toward the undesirable object (i.e. work, vegetables) and releasing that system, it appears that I've been conditioned to rather cover up my negative experience and forget about it by moving into a positive experience (i.e. video game, ice cream) for a moment. And then on to the next moment until the pattern repeats again. Silly human tendency.

My relationship to sugar will need extensive investigation. There will be a bit of overlap here, as sometimes I use food/sweets as a time related distraction, but my focus is on how I let myself be overly unproductive through justification of needing to balance/reward being productive with my time.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define productivity through/as a positive charge that requires energy and a polarity out flow of negatively charged laziness/relaxation. There is an underlying dynamic that is interesting where productivity has a negative charge on it, making it hard to bring myself to this state vs. the polarity positive charge on lazy/relaxation/ease. So, there is a polarity balance within productivity alone, as well as lazy.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to NOT realize that I am maintaining charges on these words 'productivity' and 'lazy' that are cycling through polarity and manifesting as experiential cycles that cause friction and conflict within me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to positively and negatively charge 'lazy/relaxation' - instead of relaxing being simply that which it is - without a mental desire/avoidance mechanism in place.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to desire to be lazy because I perceive it as easy.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to desire the easy life.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to see being lazy or relaxing as 'bad', as this is utilized by me to feel guilt or judge myself for not being 'good', effectively perpetuating the cycle of internal friction and conflict = no self-change

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to positively and negatively charge 'productivity' - instead of seeing productivity simply as a necessary part of life to get stuff done.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to desire to be productive because then I will be rewarded.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to see productivity only in contrast to the positive reward, as something that I must to be able to move forward. In this, I have externalized my motivation and removed myself from the sole driver of me as being self-responsible, and in that productive.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to get caught up in a reward cycle, losing awareness of time in the context of the day and what else I can or should be doing.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to say/think "just one more round" without realizing the design of perpetuating my abdication of my responsibility for myself, here in every moment.

When and as I see myself fighting with myself to get motivated and productive, I stop I breathe. I realize that I'm in an internal polarity conflict because I have energetically charged who I am in relation to work. I commit myself to assist and support myself in becoming aware of how I have created myself in relation to productivity as difficult and relaxation as reward. This system is not helping me to be as effective as I can be.

When and as I see myself delaying work or maintaining distraction, I stop I breathe. I realize that I have an ultimate responsibility for myself and my decisions within every moment. I commit myself to acknowledging that I am unable to divert, avoid, or excuse myself from the consequences that will ensue from me not wanting to take responsibility for myself here. *Here = one moment and all moments.

I commit myself to realizing the significance of what is here and who I am in relation to whatever is here. This is who I am. I am defined by my relationships, and yet I allow them to flow out from my past, and blame my past an the people that have shaped me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to blame others, and not always recognize my self-responsibility for the entirety of myself within what is here. This being my past/present creating my future. I am responsible for this process even though it appears automated and uncontrollable.

I commit myself to continue investigating my automation AND taking responsibility for it.

Day 303 - Second Wind

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I can only do so much in a day.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel that I can only do so much in a day.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel drained and unable to direct myself productively.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not make an attempt to stop my reaction of perceived inability.

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I commit myself to really stop, and breathe, when I see myself thinking/feeling that I can't go on, that I can't do anymore, that I must rest.

I commit myself to self-honestly assessing myself, in breath, to determine if I really do need to rest - or is my mind just creating this reality in this moment.

Day 300 - Correcting Sleep Patterns

For as long as I can remember, I've spent the majority of my nights in a silent fight with myself. The basic idea was to postpone falling asleep as long as I can, to make full use of my time at night. Why was the nighttime special to me? It was time I had to myself.

Primarily in a family setting when this habit formed, I enjoyed social interaction during the day, but when the late evening arrived and everyone is doing their own thing, I would go into learning and work mode. It seemed the best way to use my time, and through this I developed an emphasized value on the late hours of the day. The results: Many late nights due to saving / delaying my work until the night & I utilized these late nights for self growth and understanding. It was opposite of how I perceived my peers and family to be. This inflated my ego superiority through "I am investing my free time into understanding whatever I am curious about." In college, most of my free (night) time to myself disappeared, and I doubled up on social time. This caused me to react and subtly define social time negatively as "social distraction." Now, I am for the most part free of obligated time structure, so I have full responsibility of my schedule. For the first time, I get to observe myself spending time throughout the entire day without anything to blame but me.

What have I found? I haven't made the changes I want to see with any amount of consistency.

What do I want? To spend my day time effectively and start respecting my sleep cycle.

How? Through self-corrected living application of course!

Why? Because fighting sleep usually means unpleasant mornings that can put  my whole day in a slump.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I do not need to sleep very much and thus can afford to postpone sleeping.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize the connection between how/when I fall asleep and how/when I wake up.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think "I'll sleep when I die."

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I am special because I can get by with less sleep than others.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I am cool and special because I can stay up the latest and rise the earliest.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to compare myself to others.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to value the nighttime hours more than other daytime hours.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not take ownership of and be responsible for how I spend my time in every moment, through blaming others for my daytime social preoccupation.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to tell myself that I utilize the night hours best in being the most productive then, when the reality is that I am not always productive in the nighttime.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to limit myself by maintaining a routine of mental alertness and increased work ethic only at nighttime.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to reserve only the nighttime for self-introspection and self-growth.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that it's too difficult to blog during the day because I am not forced to do it just yet. This is a subtle delay justification that I'm not very conscious of, but nonetheless, has a powerful effect. This one point of delay justification has been defining me too heavily and I will not continue to allow it to dictate how I do what when!

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not investigate my sleeping habits until now.

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I commit myself to begin watching when/how I fall asleep and when/how my wake up commences.

When and as I see myself postponing my blog/work until nighttime because "I don't have to do it yet," I stop I breathe. I realize that I am compromising myself, my process, and so the entire process of the human race, in that one single moment of "I don't have to do it yet." I commit myself to assist and support myself to no longer utilize this excuse design of putting off work and abdicating self-responsibility in each and every moment.

When and as I see myself fighting with myself to stay awake longer, I stop I breathe. I realize that sleeping might be whats best for all, for providing myself adequate time to rest will allow me to be fully ready to walk an effective day tomorrow. I commit myself to embodying the realization of continuity between days and respecting the sleep cycle as an equal and one value of time spent. Till here no further do I hide the connection of my tomorrow from my today. No more do I allow myself to distract myself instead of going to bed.

From here forward, I will be mindful of my sleeping habits, and I commit myself to on the fly correction when and as I see myself abusing my nighttime.

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