Self Improvement & Poem
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10 Mar 2013, 12:16 pm
I found a folder today that I had forgotten existed that had lots of things in it that I wrote when I was a teenager. Most of it was embarrassing emo stuff that I threw away, but I found a couple things in it that I would not be embarrassed to associate with myself that I would like to share. The first is a poem I wrote about myself, and the second is a self-improvement list I made for myself.
Quote:
The Strange Man
He was born with a quirky smile that stayed in his head.
And an ideal for love irrelevant to what is done in bed.
Like the mad man who pursues a god that doesn't exist.
He searched for this love with his quirky smile,
With every failure his brain turned to bile
And every attempt was a failure;
He was insane.
He pursued it like a priest pursues god,
But was too honest to believe he had found it
His Honesty was his depravity
Love was truth and that was his God
Others used it to abuse him,
and it hurt worse than any rod.
He was born with a quirky smile that stayed in his head.
And an ideal for love irrelevant to what is done in bed.
Like the mad man who pursues a god that doesn't exist.
He searched for this love with his quirky smile,
With every failure his brain turned to bile
And every attempt was a failure;
He was insane.
He pursued it like a priest pursues god,
But was too honest to believe he had found it
His Honesty was his depravity
Love was truth and that was his God
Others used it to abuse him,
and it hurt worse than any rod.
It has been so long since I wrote that that I do not remember what I had intended exactly when I wrote it, but something about it seems good. You might notice that sometimes I get a sort of rythm going and then I break it. I think I remember I did that deliberately because that was how I felt. You can also probably tell that I have been an atheist for a while.
The next thing I found was this self-improvement list:
Quote:
I will make myself better!
--Everything I am in control of will be organized and arranged to the maximum level of practicality.
--I will know what I want to the best of my ability
--Everything I say and do will be sincere, and/or (if both are not possible) be aimed toward the betterment of myself and/or others. I will earn trust, and those who trust me will be better off.
Here I wrote in the margin, "Trust is in the hands of others, got everything else"--Everything I am in control of will be organized and arranged to the maximum level of practicality.
--I will know what I want to the best of my ability
--Everything I say and do will be sincere, and/or (if both are not possible) be aimed toward the betterment of myself and/or others. I will earn trust, and those who trust me will be better off.
Quote:
--I will do nothing if not with my whole
--I will test myself for the purpose of increasing my knowledge and wisdom.
--My body will be capable of taking care of my mind, and moreso.
--I will be true to myself
--I will have fun
--I will pursue those I love without hesitation. With them I shall be sincere beyond my society's understanding of the word. There will be no reason for "I am going to," "I am" will be sufficient.
--I will revise my view of what I must do (this list) as necessary.
--Consistent instinctive fear will keep me from doing nothing.
--I will break myself of the habit of hiding myself unnecessarily
--I will test myself for the purpose of increasing my knowledge and wisdom.
--My body will be capable of taking care of my mind, and moreso.
--I will be true to myself
--I will have fun
--I will pursue those I love without hesitation. With them I shall be sincere beyond my society's understanding of the word. There will be no reason for "I am going to," "I am" will be sufficient.
--I will revise my view of what I must do (this list) as necessary.
--Consistent instinctive fear will keep me from doing nothing.
--I will break myself of the habit of hiding myself unnecessarily
And then I wrote later on the page,
Quote:
"Pursuing those I love without hesitation" is impractical for the romantic part of the resolution. Revise: I will pursue those I love romantically to the maximum level within prudence-as I best understand it. What I had in mind when I wrote it tends to creep a girl out."
My life will be on my own initiative as often as permits without breaking the other resolutions in any serious way.
My life will be on my own initiative as often as permits without breaking the other resolutions in any serious way.
I was surprised when I read this to have found that I do all of this now out of habit. If I remember correctly, this may be the 2cd of 3 different lists of the sort that I made. I revised the lists as I improved, and when I improved so much that the original draft was no longer useful, I made a different list. Now I do pretty much everything on all 3 of the lists out of habit that I still consider to be good practice. I thought it was interesting that what I did 5 years ago has had such a huge influence on who I am now, even though I had forgotten nearly everything about this list until I found it today.
