A Hesitant start.
A short story about new beginnings
Somewhere in southeast Texas, in a small country neighborhood where birds twitter cheerfully and the sun-rays grace the land, a man roughly the age of 24 sits on a small cushioned stool in front of a modest coffee table which serves as the desk where he works, practices his hobbies, and more recently, writes.
The man is me, and this story is about how I found this site as well as the methods, motives, and machinations that brought me here. I should start with the introduction. I was sitting at the aforementioned “desk” idly googling trivia and listening to the radio, classic rock and roll filling the placid lake of air that is my living room with tumultuous waves of sound. As my body moved on auto pilot typing my queries, I contemplated my life and more specifically how to go about improving it, not for the first time this week.
Fresh off a plane ( I had travelled to the mountains of central California for work and experience for about months) and loaded with a broader mind, plus a solemn outlook towards my future. I hade met many well travelled and experienced people while on my journey and seeing how far they’ve come sparked a fire inside of me to do more, reach more, be more. An easy enough resolution to think about for sure, but a monumentous task in practice. The only thing stopping me now is my stubborn repitition of bad habits, built for a meager struggling life, not the high ambitions I have.
To rip out one’s core funtions and replace them with improved parts is to completely demolish one’s basic life. Sure coffee at 9 p.m. is enjoyable for me, but it isn’t healthy for my body. To spend hours on a video game while ignoring bills isn’t responsible. These things and more are part of a bad autopiloting system, designed around comfort instead of progress and balance. An outdated system in need of a firmware upgrade.
This is the subject of my contemplations, in front of the laptop at my “desk” in southeast Texas. How do I go about improving my habits and my life, in a meaningful way? Where do I start, and how? The answer, I think, lies in my skills and hobbies, My crafts. I’ve practiced alot of crafts over the years from audio production to zoology but I never use them to further my life goals or reach out to the community. Writing only on Google Keep rather than this online community, or shying away from business when the opportunity arises
But as I sit there googling, I remember a list I made; different ways my computer can branch out. The first entry on that list was blogging, So I poured some concentration into learning about blogging, how to get started, some tips and tricks, and general basics.
I chose medium for the ease of writing. I can simply publish a story with no back-end hassle. Also the unique publishing style. I am a small voice in a large sea of words, but I can still be heard. And that type of popular anonymity is very nice, appealing, to my breed of person.
Bettering yourself is always painful, if done right. But most adults will tell you, not all pain is bad, and the reward and pleasure of growing past your own weaknesses and flaws to become a person you see as better, more full a human, is more than worth the moments of hurt you spend changing into that person. Step by step is how I take it, in the moment.
