2023-05-26 Journal Entry

🍃 Season: 🌷 Spring 🔆 Weekday: Friday 🗓 Date: May 26, 2023 📅 Week: May 22 – May 28, 2023

Today is the first day I’m doing this Heroic training. Dan had the idea to do it — although he’s far more bought in to the “learn to be a coach” part; I’m just along for the ride — but I’m optimistic. I think it’s the sort of thing I’d normally cringe at, if I’m being honest, but this time around I feel like there’s a lot of opportunity there. On retreat, I learned a lot about just how much that consistent dedication can really, truly change us in our heart of hearts. I think this is an opportunity to do the same for myself, but this time for the values I’m trying to really optimize for: creativity, energy, zeal, courage, optimism.

For a long time, I’ve had a very unfortunate image: the tortured soul. There’s some amount of truth to this, I’m not denying that. Parts of my life have been truly difficult, and in fact the last several months have been particularly difficult, but I do think I want to change my self-image. I’ve always pinned myself as being “scrappy” and someone who can execute, but I don’t think I’ve ever considered myself an “ideas guy” or particularly creative. I’ve enjoyed creative things, but that’s always been about having taste or being knowledgeable, and that’s something I’d like to change. I want to be weirder, to daydream, to see more in my minds eye and show that beauty to the world. There’s beauty in the world, but it requires us to see it. I want to figure out how to take people by the hand and show them that beauty. The world is a beautiful place, but that beauty is also entirely constructed, so let’s make this place fucking gorgeous. Let’s take all the dirt and splash around in it — the entire world is dirt anyways! Even when I feel isolated or alone, there’s absolutely beauty in that.

My image of myself is bound to change a bunch over time, but I like the idea of seeing myself as a psychic explorer, as someone who plunges the depths of our psyches and finds whole new worlds (yes, plural!) there. The worlds in our heads are what make the world beyond, so it’s high time we roll up our sleeves and dig around between the ears.