The part where I start something…

I’m still trying to navigate my way around this site and app (thanks for providing free blog space, WordPress), so pardon me if this post ends up on the “back cover”, so to speak. But rather than take the time to study on how to use the site, I went ahead and fulfilled the male stereotype of jumping in and started building without reading the directions. And you know what? I’m okay with that. This is a blog, after all. A personal blog, not even monetized, not being graded or assessed by a specific rubric. I don’t need to use the ‘Maury paragraph’ on here. I do hope that last sentence made some of you chuckle… I do have a small grin on my face thinking about what my high school English teachers would say about my referencing that infamous staple of the papers we had to write. By the way, I still don’t like writing, despite having been told a multitude of times that I’m an excellent writer. Contradictory, wouldn’t you say so?

Now that I’ve covered the obligatory tangent, I originally wanted to drop a few words about starting new things, but maybe not always finishing them. I do this fairly often, to my own small level of personal annoyance. I bring this up because I’m hopeful in that 6 months, or a year, or even 5 ye – wait, let me be realistic and hold it at a year! – I’d like to drop a paragraph or two about having a sense of satisfaction in that I’ve kept up with being able to [somewhat] regularly upload a post on here. See, I’m one of those people who gets bored with most things and allows it to peel away like a snake sheds its skin. But it’s not always boredom that separates me from certain endeavors. Lack of raw available time, a permanent schedule or location change, a major life change (do you even remember your life before your kid(s) came along?), laziness, financial change, etc. – the list goes on. Any number of factors could cause us to not reach a goal that we set for ourselves when we began something. My example: I bought myself an electric guitar with the goal of being able to play at least a handful of songs. I even ordered an interactive game for my home gaming console to learn as I played the games and practiced the lessons. I now tsk myself as I reveal that my guitar has come out of its dusty gig bag no more than twice in about 4 years. I became frustrated in having reached a plateau, and the break that I took became a leave of absence, then a semi-permanent vacation. Now mind you, I haven’t given up on it completely. In fact, I’ve said to my girlfriend on more than a few occasions that I need to get my guitar out and hook it up to the PlayStation and get to practicing again. I just haven’t gotten around to doing it yet. In my defense, inconvenience would be the reason holding me back. I hadn’t a feeling that I would find it improbable to be able to focus on playing while in the living, the central hub of traffic in our modest home. Counterpoint – my girlfriend has been thoughtful of my solitary needs enough that she tries to do things with the kids or of the house and leave me at home alone. So I guess I should go ahead and take advantage of that alone time, stop making excuse for my persistent laziness, and reapply myself to learn something that would increase my sense of self-improvement.

My apologies for my long-winded rambling. However, I think it’s safe to say that my take away from this is that I need to reaffirm my long – ago goal of self improvement. I know that some of my paths will be harder than others, but that just means I get more experience points for the work. And you, reader, what would you like to reaffirm for yourself?