Somehow a post from the Art of Manliness showed up in my twitter feed.  I believe that the Art of Manliness is a blog about some cool shit (such as, the ultimate pushup guide), they assume the majority of people interested in their topics are men. I don’t mind. I follow many websites/blogs/sports where the assumed audience is women-only. Its fine.

I digress.  This tweet led me to an entry on the topic of journaling.  It provides 31 journal topics meant to be a ‘roadmap’ to help one develop the healthy habit of journaling.  When I started this blog, I failed at following Blog-U. But new year, new attention span for Kari.  I hope to develop a healthy writing habit and am using you all as my audience.

Why am I doing a 31 day challenge? Several reasons. I want to develop a consistent writing habit. I want to have a space to clear my mind, so when I sit down to write at work (or here) there aren’t 500 million competing ideas all vying for my attention.  These are the two biggest reasons I want to write, and you can see are very closely related.  In fact, I dare to assert that the ladder is merely more of a why for the former.  Practicing writing is practicing communication. I often struggle with this. I have so much going on in my head, I think through a (fake) conversation in my head, and forget that I haven’t actually had that conversation with the other person and wonder why they don’t already know the information I’ve been thinking about telling them.  Its silly, I know.

Writing & communicating, like the rest of my life, needs to be simple. If I had to desginate a theme to the direction I am attempting to move my life towards, it would be simplicity. I am trying to organize my appartment, stop my addiction to stuff, be measured and calculated in my actions. I want the things that are in my life and take up my time reflect what I actually care about.  So what do I care about? I can go through a list of people that I care about, but what it boils down to is, I care about people. There are different levels: first my personal relationships, the safety of my fellow Americans, the safety of innocent people across the globe. I want to live simply, simply live to create a better space for those around me near and far. By the way, If you follow me at all you know that, yes, I do indeed include my dog when I speak generally about ‘people.’

So, why am I journaling a 31 day art of manliness challenge? As an exercise for me to be a better person for the world.

Do you see what happened there?  I started writing this and thought it was a lame, dry “here’s what I’m going to be writing about this month” that I would inevitably not follow through with (because life), and ended with a humanitarian devotion to selflessly make myself better.  I think this journaling thing is working!

Aside, my Believe training journal was delivered yesterday. Unfortunately its somewhere in the front house. I can’t wait to start journaling for my #womanup2016