The 1st Word (or ‘ A 2nd plan for Seneca’)
I probably should go hide in corner right now. Still no new blog post or update from Seneca. What a shame… I could’ve seen it coming.
Right before I made my previous post, I knew I would go right into my holidays and spend a couple of days in England (I was in Bath and London). Therefore, I knew I would have no or at best very limited time to write. Anywho, wishful thinking took over and I said what I said. A problematic behaviour, even more so if one repeats it – like I did. Setting yourself goals and not committing to them over and over again, makes you lose self-respect.
The other problem I found, was that I set too many goals at once. I wanted to make too much work from the start simultaneously. Firstly, writing regularly in here. Secondy, having a good system for digesting and writing about Seneca. By no means easy challenges. One itself is hard enough considering all the other things going on in my life. So, that’s why I decided to break my goals down even more. Limit myself. Wanting less – a stoic lesson.
In the next three months – the single goal for this site will be to publish one post each week. That’s it. That also leads me to the first word I would tell my younger self: Focus.
If I lacked something very much the last couple years, it was focus. Regarding Seneca, I decided to make it a year-round project. I wil get back to it eventually and post about it here, but for now not in regular intervals.
2nd Word
Funnily enough, this goal does also lead me to my 2nd word: Write.
In Switzerland (and I guess in other countries as well) it’s quite common to give students at the end of their compulsory schooling the opportunity to work on a project of their choice. So, each week for a whole semester they can dedicate a half day or so to this project. However, it is mandatory to document everything very well and to present it and the end of the semester. Personally, I find these kind of projects fascinating. After several years of being forced to learn somehting and being told how to spend their thinking time, they eventually are allowed to do somehting completely on their own. These projects tell you unbelievably much about a student.
I for my part decided I want to write a crime novel. I was astonished by the choice myself, since my focus was clearly on maths and science. My upcoming apprenticeship (which I already had at that time) as a design engineer underlines that, but I kinda knew: I want to write a book. I knew, I would like it.
Turns out, I looooove writing. I really do. I love thinking about how to formulate a thought, how to tell a story, how to come up with a story, introduce an character, describe a scenery, describe a feeling… everything. Literally everything. I knew two things, when I had written this book:
- I will write another book.
- I AM a writer
I knew that with my whole heart and I always knew, I would come back to it. By starting this very blog, I decided, now is the time to come back. I don’t know if it would have changed anything really, if I had given me this word ‘Write’ to my former self. Excpet maybe that I have it as a reminder, I already know what I want and what I’m going to do in this live. Write.
3rd Word
Yeah, sorry. I’m not going to answer it in this post. After my previous, very passionate section about writing, this section would ruin it… This word is purely calculative and pragmatic. However, it introduces another problem, which I would like to address regarding my site. My interests and therefore the topics I want to write about are widely spread. Yesterday, I wrote about Seneca. Today, I write about my love for writing. Tomorrow, I’ll write about personal finances.
Of couse, given my situation I will periodically focus on something. However, the content will vary, so don’t be surprised, when you suddenly find a post “Why Cosine is the better Sine” next to a Seneca post. I will try to categorize everything, so you do find stuff you’re interested in. Just be aware that this Andrew’s mind palace or Andrew’s shot to be like Tim Ferriss. Nothing is true, everything is permitted (a quote from Assassin’s Creed, which I only added just to illustrate how broad, confusing and complex this site can and will be).
Read you soon!
