Random Observation/Comment #263: Side projects make life worth living. Passion will always drive excellence.
As seen from my previous post (right below this one, actually), I embarked on a journey to productively make a change in my life per month. Day 0 was September 15th, and after 7 days, I must say that the philosophy behind these challenges is much different than I thought from the beginning.
It may be true that completing these challenges will make you feel more productive and accomplished every month with that pat on the back, or even that the habit created from the challenge can carry through as a useful routine, but I never realized that the true value is the method of keeping track of each activity.
The truth is that these challenges aren’t revolutionary; however, my attention to the detail of doing each task is the real challenge. I don’t feel like I’ve changed my routines. Instead, I’ve taken a more active role in my personal activities. I don’t realize how many people I talk to per day and how many of them have actually been out of touch for some time, but random events happen where I bump into old friends. When I revisit this challenge regarding the friends I’ve caught up with, I’ve found that I catch up with enough people regularly. Recording who I spoke with and looking back in the past 7 days gives me that slow nod of satisfaction.
In terms of the push-up routine, I needed to make adjustments to the original challenge because 100 per day started to kill my arms and chest after 4 days. I did not plan it enough to separate them throughout the day, so I wound up over-exerting myself too much in the beginning. I decided to then adjust the challenge to do 60 push-ups in a row by the end of the 30 day challenge. This means that I will need to pace myself to do +1 more push-ups per day. I am at 37 in a row right now, which is still within my normal limits.
And lastly, the blogging and toastmasters speeches challenges very conveniently become filled by the essence of the challenges themselves. The whole thing is really quite balanced and self-sufficient.
I think this entry was too enlightening for the first week. I will hopefully get more inspiration to write more impressions in the weeks to come.
~See Lemons a Quarter of the Way There
