Day 4

Busy day, and hopefully the last one where I'm operating at an unsustainable output of energy. Got up, performed toilette a bit slower than necessary, ate a healthy breakfast, rocked a hard day at work, worked on my essay, filled up gas on the car, cleared up some paperwork with the landlord, did something else that I'm blanking on right now, cleaned up, made a healthy dinner, read Crime and Punishment for about 1/2 an hour, made lunch for tomorrow, and now I'm getting ready to go to bed. Tomorrow will be a more healthy day, in terms of output vs. rest, and I plan on working on the program for 1/2 an hour.

Day 3

Still going strong. I got up promptly, performed my morning toilette, ate a nutritious breakfast, got half-way set up at work, kicked ass there (work is now an intense exercise from start to finish, so I exercised in the middle of all this), came back for a nutritious lunch, did some shit with my bank account, finished up at work, went on a big grocery trip, made a nutritious dinner, bought some necessities from the corner store, did the dishes, made lunch for tomorrow, did some laundry, unpacked a little more, made a list of the stuff I still need to do, performed my nightly toilette, shot a quick e-mail to the project guys, and after writing this I'll do a bit of French and go to bed. I'm tired, and I know I'm not resting enough, but right now is crunch time and once I get past this I'll be back on a normal, healthy schedule. I'm planning to take off two days this weekend, one of those being the holiday on Monday. I should definitely finish Dostoevsky by then.
I'm entering a writing contest, and to give myself time for that I'm splitting my writing time. My looming deadlines are as follows: by Wednesday night I want to have finished brainstorming on my essay, and by September 7th I'm going to be finished restructuring my novel and ready to work on draft 2. I also want to finish this moving in shit as fast as humanly possible, without giving myself a heart attack.

Day 2

Still going strong. Today I woke up, performed my "toilette", as I think Ben Franklin refers to it, with haste, ate a healthy breakfast, packed up the rest of my stuff, drove to Maryland, while I was driving I contemplated a question in my writing project, I got to Annapolis, unloaded my stuff, went back out to Trader Joes to get some necessary house crap, drove to Target to get our house furnishings, returned, cleaned the house a bit, set up some shit, ate a healthy dinner, cleaned some more, read Dostoevsky for about 10 minutes, and now I'm getting ready to go to bed. No programming today, and maybe not tomorrow either given my current schedule. Soon though, I'll be back in at my full strength.

Day 1

It's day 1 because I think I've found that system I was telling Dan about. I've even added a psychological trick to get me to be even more efficient. Why do I think things will be different now? Because every task I did today, including writing, I did with zeal and without shrinking from the challenge. No sloppy transitions, no half-assed attempts, no day dreaming or anything. I was like Brian Dawkins getting in my work's face today. For now I'm not going to use quantitative scoring, just qualitative updates and the day count.
Sorry about not responding on the programming stuff. This week has been hectic, and if I ever have spare time, I use it for writing, as I said I would. Starting next week things should be more stable and I can get back to working on the program.
Today I ate three healthy meals, exercised good dental hygiene, practiced French for 1/2 hour, researched Parkour for 1/2 hour, exercised for 1/2 hour, wrote for an hour, helped my mom take shit to my sister's dorm room, read Crime and Punishment (my relaxation time) for about an hour and twenty minutes, and packed up stuff for my new apartment for an hour.

Like I said a while ago--if I wait too long, I restart my count at zero. Dan, I glanced at your system. It's too late for me to read it in detail, but I'll let you know what I think soon. I have a lot going on right now.
Today's score: 1
Total score: 1

I'm aiming to only go up or stay the same, at the worst. Sliding back is terrible--it basically negates time that I can never get back in my life. Today I drove Eva to Annapolis, helped her move in, went apartment hunting, possibly set up short term housing for myself, wrote a letter, drove back to Media (I'll be here until Sunday night probably), I did French, and I'll probably do a workout before going to bed.

I'm going to add some sentamental snapshots to supplement my top ten list. These are lovely images that just come to mind when I'm away from home and I think of Philly:

* Walking up the BF Parkway on a crisp fall morning by myself, thinking, heading toward the Art Museum, seeing the flags waving, the leaves changing color, Logan circle, and the circle in front of the museum.

* Sitting in my living room on a hot summer night watching the Phillies, with the sound of a night-time thundershower outside, eating a Rita's water ice with the windows open, a fan blowing on me.

* Walking up to a lady at a cash register and hearing that Philly accent, the nasaly sounds, "wooter", "O"s turning into "OW", and the wierd "ea" dipthong that people make

* Crowded bar during Eagles season, a sea of green, and the place going nuts on a touchdown, people hugging each other after wining a huge game.

* Sitting on a bench waiting for SEPTA, seeing an old white guy and and old black guy accross the street playing chess on a table, and admiring a huge mural of a civil rights figure painted on the side of a building.

* Rittenhouse square on a cold, clear winter night before Christmas time with all the lights.

* The drive on 76 east from NW to downtown--first you go through Fairmount park, then you hit boathouse row with the lights and river in front of it, the back of the art museum, and by then you see the Cira center followed by the rest of the skyline.

* A tiny, crowded neighborhood deli, walking up to the counter, ordering quickly in code words, "provolone, wit" or, " mixed cheese, everything, sweet, mayo, oil, vinager", and some fat scruffy Italian guy nodding his head, scribbling something, ripping the order off of his pad, taping it up, yelling something to the back, and saying, "Next! Yeah, what can I get you? "

I'm in a strange but good mood right now. Actually, I've felt this way from the time I woke up. I feel like I've become immortal, all the world's problems have been solved, I've achieved what I wanted to achieve, and the public has been dispersed into a multitude of private worlds constructed from objects of comfort and sentamentality. I've begun my own eternal, post-struggle life, retiring into a dreamlike paradise. I almost feel like I'm on drugs. So what did I do? I peeled out of my house, picked up a totally quality hoagie from Hoagie Planet, and got a philly soft-pretzel for 50 cents. I wolfed down my glorious hoagie, savored the preztel, and now I'm sipping on Wawa peach iced tea and getting ready for some Tastykake triple chocolate cakes--chocolate frosting, cake, and cream. I was just now jumping up and down in delight over how much I love Philadelphia. Inspired by my state of mind, and my overflowing love for this area, I'm going to rock a top 10 list. Everyone else reading this blog, if you live or have been to the area, rock your own top 10 list in the comments section.
My Top Ten Favorite Things About Philadelphia
10. Location: this one is somewhat lame because it's only about Philly indirectly, but it's an asset nevertheless, so I'll put it at #10. In an hour and half to two hours you could get to the mountains, the ocean, Baltimore, Washington, the Chesapeake, or NY. Boston is also a reasonable distance away. Philly's right in the middle of everything on the East Coast.
9. Ethnic diversity: like some of the other items in the high numbers of my list, it's something I love about Philly, but it's not unique to Philly. Not to mention a city like San Francisco kicks our ass in this category. However, you can still find a great representative from any cuisine anywhere in the world somewhere in Philadelphia, and I love that. You see people of all different types here, and that definitely enriches the place. People forget this is still the 5th largest city in the nation, and third largest metro area, so we've got all sorts of diversity and human resources. I believe a while ago we had 3rd highest asian population in the states? That was a while ago, and maybe it's changed. Like other cities, we have racial tension, but I'd say it's not nearly as bad as somewhere like LA.
8. Universities: Philly has great universities, but it's not really unique among cities, so I'm placing it high on the list. Still, time as a student at Penn might be in my future, which would be awesome. I should add here that the area does have a uniquely strong intellectual culture. There was some thing I saw a while ago, a search tool on Google, where you can see a breakdown of different places from which people search for various things. I typed in several authors from the Great Books and Philly came up in the number 1, 2, or 3 spot many times, over NY, LA, and Chicago--impressive considering the tool used absolute number of searches.
7. Art: if I was more of an art nut this would be higher up, but I still appreciate it immensely. The main art museum has the third largest collection in the country, and when you add the Rodin, largest collection of his works outside of Paris, and the Barnes, largest private collection in the states, it's kind of incredible. PLUS, and this is a huge plus in my opinion, the mural program here has been the envy of the whole country, and its result has been the replacement of stupid graffiti by gorgeous, building sized murals EVERYWHERE. I believe we have more murals than any other city in America. They also contribute to my number 1 favorite thing about the city.
6. The Sports: ok, so they haven't won a championship in a while, which sucks, but I think a year or two ago ESPN ranked Philly as the city with the second best sports teams overall in terms of wins, quality of stadiums, number of teams, etc., second only to Boston. The fans are so passionate, although I wish they would be less negative and borish, but it's still a rush when we do well and everyone goes nuts. I was in Center City the day after the Sixers won game 1 of the 2001 finals and everyone was in the best mood I'd ever seen. My SEPTA rides on the 101 and El were free, people were honking, waving flags, everyone had the jerseys on--even stupid racial shit seemed to disappear for the day. It's just such an experience, especially the Eagles. It also seems that this is Northest/upper Midwest thing. They don't give half as much of a shit about sports out west.
5. Fairmount park, and the general greenery of the area: Penn laid out the city as the Greene Country Town, and it still blows my mind going to other cities and seeing the disparity between Philly and other places. Fairmount, I believe, is the largest city park in America,10x the size of Central Park. It has mountain biking, kayaking, swimming, hiking, etc, plus cultural stuff like the Mann music center, the Japanese Tea House, and several panoramic plateaus. The park creeps down into Center City and connects up with the Schuykill River trail and the Art Museum. The suburbs here are lush, and three out of four of Penn's original Center City parks are alive and well, and serve as great places to read, eat lunch, take a nap, or whatever.
4. History: perhaps Boston is the only other city that can compete here. I love that everything I walk past is hundreds of years old and served some historical purpose. I love that the country began here, and that we have the Independence National Historical Park. Plus there's Ben Franklin, whom I'll always consider the greatest American of all time, or at least the one that did the most in terms of shaping the concept of what it means to be American.
3. Food. This is Philly unique. In that book 1000 Things to Do Before You Die, there's one thing for Philly that is just the food. She says it rules in both the high end and low end categories. I don't have enough money yet to know about the high end stuff, although we've got the names to make that seem plausible to me, but on the low end I couldn't agree more. Hoagies, cheesesteaks (GG Special), Tastykakes, regional style iced tea, olde Philly sodas, soft pretzles, pizza--it's all amazing. I miss this so much when I'm living elsewhere, even somewhere as close as Maryland, where you think they'd have comparable stuff, but they don't, at all. No where does. It's wierd to me, but this stuff only seems to be this good here. Maybe it's the Schuykill water.
2. Realness factor: this is both a negative and a positive in my view, but right now I'm thinking about the positive side of it. When I was living in the Southwest and West, people were super mellow and nice in their public interactions. It was almost as if people were having a competition to see who could be the most chill and cool. However, I started to find incedences of major behind the scenes shit talking and underhanded shit aggrevated seemingly by a lack of public outlet. In other words, it wasn't ok to confront someone if you had a problem with them; instead, maybe you would talk a bunch of shit about them, but then when you saw them, you would have to act super nice to them like everyone else. So all this time that person thinks you're cool with them when you're actually not. 90+% of the people I went to college with were from the western region of the states, and I saw this all the time. Sometimes I would be shunned for being too open about shit. Philly, and other northeastern places are the opposite of this. I once saw a cartoon that kind of embodies what I'm trying to say. There were two frames with pretty similar drawings--two guys passing each other on the street. One frame was titled Los Angeles and the other was titled New York. In the LA one, the guys was saying "Hello" but the thought bubble above his head said, "Fuck you"; in the NY one, the two were reversed. People are open and will confront you. Even some roughness is actually not that big of a deal and it can be refreshing in a way. I'll go further though--in the attitude category, Philly is even realer than NY. It's as San Francisco is to LA in my opinion--both in the same genre, but SF is realer than LA. Everyone who wants to be in the "in" place, just in a place with name recognition, goes to NY. Fuck those people. I'm glad they're not in Philly. People who think that LA and NY are the only two cities in America. They're all parrots, apes basically. It's kind of why I hate Vanity Fair, even though they have some good articles from time to time. If you want to be a star, if you want to strut around and be a primadonna and shit, you're infinitely more likely to live in NY than Philly. So for the other cities, i.e., Boston, Philly, Baltimore--you're left with, in my opinion, a better, more loyal crowd, the type of people I want to live with.
1. Timeless, non-Disneyfied, non-new-American style, classic beauty. You can't find this shit anywhere else in America except maybe elsewhere in the northeast. I'm talking about the forests, the creeks, the seasons, the stones in the park with cold water trickling down them; the wooden foot bridges, the marble fountains, the statues and sculptures; the houses--the brownstones and the townhomes in Rittenhouse, the victorians in South and West Philly, the old manors in NW, and of course the rowhouses in all corners of the city, as well as the buildings, from the humble, stately Independence Hall and the other colonial and federalist buildings of old city, to the epic, yet aristic buildings in Center City like City Hall and the Drake Building, as well as numerous others along Market, Chestnut, and Walnut with the sculpted facades and old European styles. Basically, I'm talking about the overall visual aesthetic. It inspires me--it makes me think of the writing of Emerson and the music of Ravel and Debussy.

Yesterday's Score: -1
Total Score: 6

Hmmm...I worked, studied php for 1/2 hour, studied French for 1/2 hour, read a fair amount of Crime and Punishment, and did a furious workout. So far so good (had this been all, and had I wrote, definitely a 1 or 2 day). However, I didn't write, which I'm very pissed at myself about, and the other thing, which was huge--I basically said fuck it later on in the evening when I should have been writing, and I went out, got some tastykakes and wawa crap and watched the Phillies game. I'm rationalizing this by saying that I know I'm going back to Maryland next week and I'm trying to squeeze in as much Philly fun as I can before I leave. One thing that gives me hope is that I actually let myself say fuck it. Normally when I do that I can't help it, but this time I actually agreed to just have fun. Maybe this means the system I've been using still works...who knows, whatever, I'm talking garbage right now. Today isn't looking totally inspired either, so I'm expecting not a great score later today as well.

Today's Score: 1
Total Score: 7

Here's the deal with the scoring--it's like the 1-5 system, but I make 3=0 and count the bottom two numbers as a regression and the top two numbers as an advancement. I did this because I wanted a sense of overall motion over time. It's imprecise, yes, and I thought about perhaps rating myself in a variety of different categories, like +1 book, +1 French, -1 physical fitness, -1 finances, etc. That will take too much time. This is like 5 minute cheerleading at the end of the day and I want to keep it simple. On with my point...
4 hours working, took a break from intense physical exercise and instead took a refreshing walk in the park, wrote for 1 hour, managed some finances, practiced php for 1/2 hour, French for 1/2 hour, Crime and Punishment here and there, probably 25 minutes total, and watched the Eagles. Good job 1st stringers, terrible job back-ups.

Today's score: 2
Total Score: 6

I have to give myself a 2 because I overcame the biggest urge for Wawa that I've ever had. I was ready to step out the door, get fatter, and blow some cash. I was dreaming of a moist, delicious tastykake with that classic blue and white lettering, Herr's perfectly seasoned chips, and a Wawa iced tea. I overcame the urge and instead I worked on the website. I worked, exercised, had a lovely conversation with Eva, ate well, wrote, did a 1/2 hour of French, 3/4 hours of website stuff, and watched the Phillies dominate the Mets. Good day overall.

Today's Score: 1
Total Score: 4

Total score 4 because last night I shamefully woke up, and while I was still half-asleep, I walked into the kitchen and just started eating chips and tasty kakes and drinking sodas and shit. I don't know why--I wasn't even fully conscious, but I gave myself a -1 anyway.
Today was good. I worked, exercised, and then prepared with a dinner for my dad. I basically wanted to put his mind at ease because he seems to worry so much about me failing at life. The conversation seemed to go well, and I'm happy with our dinner. That lasted all night though (we went to Sahara in Center City), so now I'm getting ready to go to bed. Tomorrow I should get back in on French, writing, and start some programming (I did read some stuff online relating to the project, and I read about 15 pages of Crime and Punishment).

The days after my first two posts were kind of shameful--I didn't do much productive, I ate a lot of crap, and I spent money needlessly, so I'll give myself a -2. But for today, I give myself a 2, so it balances out. Worked, exercised, did my French, read Crime and Punishment, and did a serious 6+ hour block of paperwork/administrative crap. Hopefully that stuff will be done with soon, and then I can bang out a bunch of time on the book.
Today's Score: 2
Total Score: 4

Today's score: 1
Yesterday's score: 1
Total score: 4

Yesterday Dan and I spent the entire day in Center City. We checked out some of the sites in Independence National Historical Park. I also learned some programming and discussed possible projects. Later in the evening, when I got home, I did a French lesson and went to bed. Today I worked for an hour, wrote for an hour and a half, ran some errands, cleaned up my computer, did a lesson in French, and after writing this I'm going to read Crime and Punishment until I go to bed.

Today's score: 1
Total score: 2

I worked strenuously for 8 and a 1/3rd hours outside earning cash and getting a great workout. I took care of a bunch of administrative stuff to get ahead for next week, and I also did a lesson in my French cds.
I tried to work on my stress problem today, with mixed results. I started the day with less rigid planning and tried to keep a mindset to work modestly but steadily, and not to worry about where I was in the overall process. This worked until I started feeling like I was on a roll, and then I felt pressure to work non-stop, all day. I tried to do this and burned out. I need to make myself rest. It's crazy, because even if I plan rest time, I stress during that time and want to be doing something mentally to help with other things during the day. Rest helps productivity; it does not interfere with it or break momentum. I'm not sure how I'm going to deal with my anxiety issue. In general, I've had success shifting my focus from how I'm doing things to what I actually accomplish. So I'm going to study my strategies, and discuss them here, but throughout the day I keep insisting on having something concrete done for the end of the day, and my mind can be as timultuous as possible, because the end result supercedes my mentality and my planning.
I was good with my transitions, but only due to my intensity, which, as I said above, caused me problems later in the day.
Possible ideas to address my problems: In the past I had success clearly defining "on" and "off" time. I would work for an hour, and then have some principle that called for 15 minutes of total off time. The times themselves weren't critical, rather psychologically distinguishing between the on and off time. I didn't feel suffocated during an on time because I knew that a break would be coming up. Right now, sometimes my mind acts as if I'll never get a break, and that I'll need to run forever. This is crazy, obviously, but if I don't preplan breaks and just wing it, trying to just get shit done, my anxiety can start taking over.
Point of clarification: Earlier I wrote that even during breaks I get stressed, but then afterwards I wrote that I had success scheduling breaks during my day. This sounds contradictory, but here's what I mean--yesterday I wrote down a list of things I wanted to do. Some of them came in the form of time spent on a particular thing. So on my list it says "work for 4 hours" "French for 1/2 hour" "create contact list" "exercise for 1/2 hour" "book for 1 hour", etc. I used this approach in order to have flexibility, rather than saying " 1-2: write; 2-2:30: French", for example. With the latter plan, what if Eva called in the middle of 1 to 2? I want to talk, and I think it's totally reasonable that I should be able to talk, but if I do, my whole day's schedule is thrown off and I get stressed out. So I took the general time chunk approach, without specifying when I would do them--more like a to-do list, rather than a schedule. Also, I planned my to-do list to be reasonable, so that I would have some time to rest during the day. What happened was that as the end of the day approached, I noticed all the things I still had to do, and even if I sat down for a minute, taking one of my pre-planned but unspecified breaks, I would freak out, feeling the pressure of my remaining tasks building against me. This is the type of break that I described first which is a break, but is useless in terms of recharging me. The historically successful break that I described above was only ever used in a rigid scheduling system, like the one I mentioned, with 1-2: X; 2-3:30: y, etc. This was easier because it was in college, and I literally could count on not being interrupted for an entire day, so I could schedule all my time in advance. Now the phone rings, the dryer is done, the dogs need to be walked, etc. etc., and all these things make a schedule like that impractical. What's the solution to this? I'm going to think about it, but I'm tired and it's late.
Keys for the next few days: Writing--I cleared up tons of time by working a double today as well as taking care of administrative crap. There isn't any reason why I can't get a lot done on the book. The question is whether I'll be able to. Also, I'm focusing on results. The means is important, but ultimately it's what I do that matters. Whether I make a rigid schedule tomorrow, or if I improvise and go with an intiutive, moment-by-moment approach, I need to power through the day, even if I start to get sloppy, in order to do something that can result in a point.

I'm ready to give this another try. I'm going to return to the basic five point rating system; however, instead of 1 through 5, I'm going to use zero as my median value. So the lower two points will designate two degrees of decline, the middle value (zero) will mean motion neither up nor down, and the higher two points will designate two degrees of virtue. In addition to a daily score, I'm going to keep a running tally of my points. It will be like a quantitative climb up a mountain of virtue. This way I can record overall progress in addition to momentary movement.
Today's score: 1
Total score: 1
I earned money by working in my neighbor's yard this morning, I worked out for half an hour (in addition to the exercise I got working), I ate three regular meals that were at least somewhat healthy, I had a lovely conversation with Eva, I worked on my book for an hour, I compiled a list of people that I want to stay in contact with along with their information and a column tracking the most recent correspondence with them--I want to do a better job of keeping up with people, I went grocery shopping for the house, I helped take care of the dogs, I practised good hygiene, I started moving forward on some lingering administrative crap, I did half an hour of French, I'm going to look again at my speed reading book to possibly work it into my schedule, and with any luck I'll get in some reading on Crime and Punishment tonight.
There were two immediately obvious flaws in my performance today, and they are both recurring problems. One is that I started getting panicked about the work I had to do and I was unable to remain calm like a stoic. To solve this I just need to control myself psychologically, and meditate on cultivating good attitudes. The other probablem was that my transitions were sloppy. I probably lost over an hour today by not crisply finishing one task and making a definitive and determined start on the next one. This is a psychological problem as well, but the solution is not strictly psychological. Good scheduling will help this problem, which partially means having a clear idea of what I want to accomplish, what each of those tasks will be like, and how I want them to go down.
Come on Dan, and Kyle if you want, we should jump back on this.

Access to the internet has been sporadic, so my posts will probably be infrequent. Eva and I left for Canada a week and a half ago, and our car seemed to endure the trip without any problems. Right now we`re not even in a town, per se, but if I wrote a letter from here I would mark it as sent from St. Jean-de-la-Lande, Beauce. The nearest settlement of any considerable size is St. Georges, which is actually where I am right now (in the library). On the farm we`ve been planting all sorts of vegetables as well as weeding. The work is simple and repetative, but it`s also relaxing in an unexpected way. The area is beautiful--we`re up in the Canadian Appalachains. Other than working on the farm, I`ve been practicing French, reading and discussing Marcus Aurelius`s Meditations with Eva, and putting in at least a half hour a day on my book. Dan--I think you would enjoy parts of the Meditations, although there are also parts where he writes about a kind of metaphysics that I`m guessing you would think is stupid. It would be an easy book to browse in a bookstore since it`s divided into small sections. One of the best things about being here is that we`re living an extremely healthy lifestyle. We eat at home for all of our meals (no eating out), and 95% of what we make is from home-grown vegetables. Basically we`ve been eating whole wheat bread, salad, rice, water, etc. Ok, it`s time to leave. Salut.

Philly touring part 3: Wash West; Washington Square; University City, including Powelton Village and some other random neighborhood along 40th. Washington West is cool, but looks like a downgrade from Rittenhouse and Fitler. Nice restaurants, all of which would be very accessable from my two preferred neighborhoods. Washington Square is lovely--it's a bit more low-key than Rittenhouse Square. University City seems tragic to me. Way too ghetto, way too much crime. However, cheap, great looking ethnic restaurants galore. It's totally on par with San Francisco. I'll bike over there to eat and hope that my bike doesn't get dismantled while I'm inside. The areas more removed from UC seemed nice, but too suburby, and even though Powelton Village looked great, everything was locked down and had bars on it. Seriously, that shit has to get cleaned up over there.

More Philly adventures yesterday. It's so much fun exploring the city. First we stopped for cappucinos at La Colombe in Rittenhouse Square, and while we were driving down Spruce (or Pine, whichever one goes east) we passed through what Aaron said was the gayborhood, which looked extremely nice. It was around 10th and Pine/Spruce. Next we went to Northern Liberties, via 3rd street north of Market. This is a great neighborhood, and I definitely need to spend more time there. It has great restaurants (several that are focused on vegetarians), and it looks like the people living there are young for the most part. My only problem with it was that there weren't many trees, and it still looks slightly run down, probably from the time when it actually was run down. Next we drove up to Girard Ave, hung a right, and went to the border of Fishtown and Kensington. I've always heard this area was a shit hole, but it's actually nice, at least where we were. It looks like South Philly but with more trees. Lots of sports stuff in windows, lawn ornaments, hoagie shops, etc. The oldest cemetary in the city is in Fishtown, and, according to Aaron, if you live in the neighborhood, you're guaranteed a spot there. Next we were headed to Northeast Philly, Lawndale to be specific. We drove through Frankford and Port Richmond, two somewhat rundown, but still ok sections of the city. First of all, driving in the NE is a nightmare. The streets design is terrible, at least where we were. I was exploring this neighborhood on a specific recommendation. The main strip did have a bunch of ethnic restaurants, but it looked like Geary St in San Francisco, which I think is ugly. It also kind of looked like Clifton Heights. I didn't like the houses, and overall, I crossed that neighborhood off the list of possibilities. We went back to Broad and travelled south on Broad through one of the areas Aaron used to live. Run down but ok. Nice houses--it's a shame that they're in such bad condition. We went back downtown and drove to Fitler Square. This was another neighborhood recommended to me. Oh yeah, first though, we caught a corner of Fairmount, trying to avoid the Parkway, and we drove down Green Street, which was mind blowingly beautiful. Fairmount is still a candidate for sure. THEN we went to Fitler Square. It looked like a cozier extension of Rittenhouse Square. The houses were astonishingly beautiful, and the square itself was nice too. There were many restaurants, some of them affordable, and everyone was outside hanging out. It looked like a medieval village almost. I don't know how I never went to this section. There's a park right on the river, and it's two or three blocks from upper South Street, where Govinda's is, as well as a bunch of cheap ethnic food. Penn is 5 minutes away across the South Street Bridge. Fitler square might be the place I end up. Next I'm checking out more of the gayborhood, which I think is called Washington Square West, more Fairmount, and breaking into University City.
It was good touring North Philly. I had a prejudicial fear of that part of the city, and while it's not the Boston Common, it really doesn't seem that bad. And Dan, I've eliminated Northwest Philly from my list of candidates. Too suburby, too removed from Center City. Right now I'm looking at Rittenhouse Square, Fitler Square, Fairmount, Washington Square, and Society Hill. More adventures tomorrow.

Toured Philly today. It was great. I'm looking for a new home when spring 07 rolls around. First I went to Fairmount. Dan, that place we got lost when we were looking for that coffee shop in Fairmount--that wasn't Fairmount. That was North Philly slums. Fairmount is actually lovely. If it had more restaurants, I'd pick it right away. It looks like Noe Valley in San Francisco. Tree lined streets, hilly, nicely kept row homes, next to the park, next to the art museum, and the one place we went to eat was good. Next I drove down Kelly Drive next to the river. The views from the road are awesome. We messed around in Mt. Airy for a while, and then we went to Roxborough. Roxborough was ok, but too suburban, too many pizza/hoagie places, not enough food or people diversity, not urban enough. Then we went to Manayunk. That neighborhood was tight. It's built onto a mountain, basically. It reminded me of those PA mountain towns. There's a huge, cool church off of main street, giving it a little bit of a Switzerland feel. Main Street itself was cool, but not that interesting, and kind of expensive. I probably wouldn't go there too much if I lived elsewhere in the city. After all of that we went to Old City to get food and leave. I had a glorious slice of Lorenzo's, and we walked around Society Hill. It is a great neighborhood, and still a candidate as a place to live. More adventures coming soon.

The intensity of the week is starting to catch up with me. I only need to keep it up for about another day. There was no early planning for any of this, which is why it's been so hectic. The fact that this happened is shameful, and in the future I need to anticipate transitions better and accomdate for them in advance. However, I have been doing the best that I can with the time that I have left. Today was like the others. I worked hella hard, took some of the trash bags to the dumpster, tied things down at the post office, donated some left over food, picked up some things at Rite Aid, picked up the car at the shop, got it inspected, got it registered, made a deposit at the bank, picked up travelers checks for the summer, dropped off the crap Ben left here, cleaned a bunch, did my three lessons of French, and packed a bunch. We still need to pack and clean. I'd like to be back in the Philly area at least by dinner time, if not earlier. I'm going to try a new route--Bay Bridge to 301, to 95, to 495, back to 95, to 476. I did give myself a few breaks tonight. I read an article in the St. John's studen literary magazine, I had a liesurely dinner, and I got a Rita's water ice as a break from cleaning.

I worked, looked up some possible apartments for next year, made some calls to move that process along, cleaned, cooked dinner, cleaned more, made a list of things I still need to do before leaving, and did my three (long!) lessons of French. I was moderate with the food that I ate, and I observed good principles of conversation throughout the day. I was continuously productive, and I think that we might leave on time. I can't believe how much I've gotten done this week. However, I've been operating on an unsustainable level, and soon I'll need to rest and preferrably begin my endeavors again at a reasonable level of intensity.

I drove my car to work for practice, worked my long shift, found a mechanic, took the car to the mechanic, settled the utilities bill, cleaned up in the kitchen, took out the trash and recycling, picked Eva up at the airport, and did my 3 lessons of French. I carried myself well throughout the day, ate well and moderately, and I was exercising good hygiene.

I haven't been posting for a while, which is shameful, but I want to get back into it. Update: I figured out what I want to do this summer--I joined an organic farm network in Canada that provides room and board in exchange for work. I'll be working on farms in Quebec. I'm doing this because I want to educate myself about agriculture, practice my French, and experience truly rural living. As for today, I'm trying to get prepared to leave. I bought a car over the weekend, and today I got the title switched and got temporary registration. Work was long today because of the shift change I implemented to get more done, which has been succesful, but it also meant I didn't have much time to do non-work things. I ate well, and I avoided overeating and eating crap. I also worked hard at work. I observed good hygiene throughout the day. When I came home I drove to an auto parts store, which was harrowing. It was the first time I've driven stickshift out on the road. I didn't crash or stall with someone immediately behind me, so it went well. Even in the short time that I was driving today, I improved my ability greatly. It's definitely more fun than automatic. I also did 3 lessons in my French program and listened to French audio at work. I narrowed down my options for how to go about addressing the mechanical problems with the car. Tomorrow I will resolve that issue; there's still a chance that I'll leave Annapolis on Friday.

Post for 4/28:
Ethics: Difficult to say. It's not worth giving background story here, but I'd say between a 2 and a 4, probably a 3 or 4.
Dream Realization: Advancing
Streak: 12

In order for me to continue my streak today(today now being Saturday), I must make huge strides with my book. I have set aside the time between 4 and 11 to work on it, and the extent to which I utilitze that time will be key.

Ethics: 4
Dream Realization: Advancing, solid effort
Streak: 11

Cooked a satisfying dinner, took a break to read for a while, planned stuff for the summer, and worked on the book for about an hour and fifteen minutes. Tomorrow I'll have a lot of time to work, because I should be able to leave work around lunch time.

Ethics: 4
Dream Realization: Advancing, slightly
Streak: 10

Here's the summary of what happened with regard to my goals:
My fitness goal was to lose two pounds between last Wednesday and today. I succeeded; in fact, I lost four pounds. Is that unhealthy? I don't feel shitty, but it seems like a lot for one week.
My writing goal was to complete a comprehensive outline of my book, specifically plot and character development. I didn't complete the outline, but in a way I did more than I expected to. The reason I say that is because the work that I have produced in the last week has been extremely detailed and, in my opinion, high quality, exceeding my expectations of what I was going to produce. I guess the issue is that I'm being more comprehensive than I planned to be, which is good, and will make the process of actually writing easier (I'm actually writing fragments of the book as I go along, especially dialogue). So even though I didn't accomplish my goal in a strict sense, I did more than I planned on doing. I've given myself a one-week extension on the outline, so I'll report back next Wednesday about that.

Ethics: 4
Dream Realization: Advancing greatly.
Streak: 9

Tonight is a time of reckoning. I'm taking a break from writing, but I have a specific goal set for myself that I'm striving to achieve. I've already written a lot, but I still have a fair amount to go. Things look good for my fitness goal, which was to lose two pounds between last Wednesday and tomorrow. I'll report back with the results.

Ethics: 3
Dream Realization: Advancing
Streak: 8

I'm nearing completion of my writing and fitness goals that I set for myself this week.

Ethics: 4
Dream Realization: Day off (yet still advancing, slightly)
Streak: 7

There it is, I've reached the 7 day mark. Dan, maybe you've already achieved this, but this is the first time that I've done it. Hopefully I can keep it up.

Ethics: 4
Dream Realization: Advancing, slightly
Streak: 6

Ethics: 3
Dream Realization: Advancing, slightly
Streak: 5

Ethics: 3
Dream Realization: Advancing
Sreak: 4

Last night I finished reading St. Julian L'Hospitalier (sp?).

Ethics: 3
Dream Realization: Advancing, slightly
Streak: 3

Ethics: 4
Dream Realization: Advancing, hella (that's for you Kyle)
Streak: 2

Ethics: 3
Dream Realization: Advancing
Streak: 1

Ethics: 4
Dream Realization: Advancing, slightly
Streak: 1

Ethics: 4
Progress: Advancing, slightly
Streak: 4

Today was like yesterday, which is reflected in the scores. I feel solid about things in general, and I'm betting that the streak will break the 1-week mark. I'm frustrated about my progress though. I guess things don't just happen overnight and that I need to be patient. It's like RZA said, "And yo, to y'all niggaz who think you gonna become an MC overnight, yaknowhatI'msayin, better snap out that fuckin dream man, it takes years for this." I just received an e-mail back from some faculty members and relations of faculty members at St. John's about writing, and the real story on it sounds grim. However, I truly am doing this for myself first, and I'm going to regret if I don't do it. Now I'm thinking that this will be a personal project only, and after I finish, I should get into some graduate school program to do my real work. That sounds so sad to me, but maybe it's the truth. Who knows though, I'm not going to be totally fatalistic before anything actually happens.
My progress was in getting into shape, saving money, and writing, like yesterday. The writing was even less, but at the same time, I filed my taxes, which knocked out something that I had been dreading. I really feel like I spend a lot of my time going through the day-to-day motions just to keep afloat and to stay organized and clean--free time that can be used on pure advancement seems rare. I just need to make the most out of it.

So far, I think the best rating system for myself was the one judging ethics, progress, and streaks. I'm going to keep the progress and streak criterias as they were, and, at least for a little while, I'm going to use the 1-5 system for ethics, with high numbers being better, or more ethical. I'd like to have a chart like the Franklin chart, but I have some issues with it. Also, even though I'm going to try to post everyday, I think it's too harsh to automatically restart my count if I there's a day when I don't.
Ethics: 4
Progress: Advancing, slightly
Streak: 3 days

My progress was writing, getting into better shape, and saving money. I'm very happy that these things are happening, because they are primary goals for me right now, but I'm not happy with the rate at which I'm accomplishing them. I want to be writing more, losing weight faster, and saving more money. Actually, the fitness thing has been moving along nicely, but the other two irritate me a little when I think about them. Overall, things are better than in the fall when I had a spending deficit, I was either getting in worse shape or staying the same, and I was barely writing.
I've been trying to pace myself, which is a perpetual problem for me. When I'm pumped, I want to "sprint", as it were, but I need to force myself to slow down and avoid burn out. This goes with generally being more tolerant of imperfection. I also tried extra hard to score high with ethics, but it was an effort, and it's not a sure thing that I'll sustain that, although I'll try. I need to schedule my time better and pace myself better, and also there are times when I just need to simply push harder.

Consectutive Days Lived Well: 3 (provided that I write after I post)

I worked, biked home, worked out, made dinner, went to the grocery store, and started on my taxes. Now I'm going to write for a while and then go to bed. I'm entertaining the possibility of writing a short story before completing the novel so that I have something to show people and maybe to test whether or not I have any potential. Writing is something I want to do; it feels almost like a duty to myself. Also, Emerson said something like, "If you're so lucky as to have Truth pay you a visit, do her the honor of writing it down" (maybe he put it in terms of the muses). Well, I agree with that, and I feel like I was fortunate enough to catch a few glimpes of some real shit, mainly during my time at St. John's, and I want to record it somehow. However, if I don't write, my endeavors would probably go much more smoothly. I never really liked writing, or, rather, I found it rewarding, but the activity itself has never been pleasurable. I'd probably be looking at graduate programs if I weren't working on this. For the time being, it's moving along, but it's painful. Mainly, I've beend dreading my pre-planned writing times. I just hate it when I dread the task. I want to beat that out of myself. It makes me want to vomit.

Consecutive Days Lived Well: 2

Today was another day of rest, but I still accomplished some practical goals. I went shopping, which I typically dread. I got some new underwear, a tighter belt, etc.--that kind of stuff. I'm slowly de-riff-raffing myself. I had an epiphany at Williams Sonoma. One thing that would be great about being rich would be to blow a ton of money on making your kitchen awesome. Having every different kind of gadget and shopping at specialty stores to get top of the line shit from around the world. You'll find me in Di Bruno Bros in Center City one day picking up some shit to make in my world-class, Rittenhouse Square apartment. I also prepared a schedule for myself for the coming week. I cleaned up a little bit too. Just basically getting ready for next week. I envy Dan being in Philly for the weekend.
I want to observe that I feel hella rested right now. I want to start sprinting, in the metaphorical sense, but I need to hold back, use my reason, and stick to my plan. That is how I'll achieve my long-term goals.

Consecutive Days Lived Well: 1
When I don't post, I'm going to restart my days-count. I think this should be a daily duty. There's rarely a day that I couldn't post if I tried, so barring some extreme circumstance, I should make it a priority to post.
Today was good. I felt like I was too wound-up and stressed because of various things, plus I wanted to catch up on some reading, so I took the day off. I hung out, or "loafed" as Whitman says, for a little bit, talked to some family and friends on the phone, and then Eva and I tried this Italian restaurant for lunch. The food was quality and the prices were reasonable. The best part was the dessert. Their gelato is top-notch. Afterwards I watched the ducks in the harbor and enjoying a light rain. If only it was warmer. Then I biked around town for a while to get exercise and went to Mark's to read. I finished Ethics (finally!) and read The Book of Tea and Drops of Rain: Rumi Quatriants. Dan, I think you'd love the Book of Tea, but I know I already recommend too many books, so whatever, check it out if you feel like it. I started on The Education of Little Tree. After that I'm going to read Teacher Man and Waiting for Godot, and then I will have read all the books that people have either recommended or given to me.

To begin posting again, I'm going to use "Consecutive Days Lived Well" as my initial criterion. It'll be similar to "Days Since a Collapse", except a collapse won't be the only occasion for restarting the count. My understanding of what it means to live well changes over time, so my decision about whether or not to count a particular day as one in which I've lived well is admittedly a function of something variable. I like the criterion because it focuses not just on "achievement" in terms of material changes in circumstance, recognition, or some other change from static state to static state, but it also takes into account activity, the value of which I've started increasingly to recognize from my study of non-modern thinkers. Tending to your domestic routines with tranquility and even reverance, spending time well with someone else, giving them a good effort on your behalf to connect with them, or admiring something beautiful for its own sake--these are activities, which I find to be important, but don't advance ourselves, or count necessarily as ends (in a sense they are ends in themselves). On the other hand, I do still value the advancements, and they will figure into my judgment. Aside from this, to give a quantitative critique, albeit highly subjective, I'll use the 1-5 system for a while too.
The past month has actually been very good for me. I saved a good amount of money, lost over ten pounds, got the internet working at my house, got a cell phone, got settled at work, and did some solid work on my book. Really, I'm tempted to start the count at 31, to include the last month, but I'll start fresh for the sake of bringing you guys along with me from a beginning, not somewhere in the middle.
Consecutive Days Lived Well: 1
Rating: 4

I'm not sure how I want to critique myself, so for the time being I'll just report.
I got up without hesitation, prepared quickly, and managed to read a thought-provoking article in the Economist while eating my breakfast. Then I biked to work and did my job well. I stopped at the bank to make a deposit on the way back, cleaned the bathroom, made dinner (tonight's pad thai was the best one I've ever made), packed up my old cell phone to send back to Sprint, did a round of eastern-style calisthenics, sat down to read Emerson for 15 minutes, straightened-up the room for a bit, participated in the Best Of Annapolis annual on-line poll, e-mailed my dad hotel information for my family's trip down here, looked up car information, and now I'm writing this. After I'm done I'm going to work on my book until 10:20, take care of my dental hygiene, and then go to bed. While I've been on the computer I've listened to Ravel's String Quartet and Dvorak's 8th symphony. It's been lovely. I also listened to Smetana's Moldau, which is the most intense piece of music I've ever heard, at least the beginning of it (I thought that the first time I heard it, and I still do). Yo Dan, remember how I said a few summers ago that if we had an apartment together I would start each day by blasting GZA and jumping around the place shouting and getting pumped up? I'd still do that on some days, but for days that I really needed a kick in the ass, I would blast the Moldau. Check that shit out. My biggest criticism of myself today is that I wasn't decisive about prioritizing my tasks and also that I rebelled against the idea of writing. I can't shrink away from that task. That should be the highest of my activities, and I should treat it with the appropriate respect. I shouldn't dread it in any sense.

Scores for 2/20:
Trangressions: 6
Days Since a Collapse: 4
Effectiveness: Advancing

Observation: Yesterday at work I was frustrated by things beyond my control. My frustration affected my entire day. Today there were the same frustrating external factors present (actually to an even greater degree than yesterday), but I guarded against becoming frustrated myself. The way I did this was to focus on one task at a time, calmly, without thinking about where I was in the overall process (if I did, it would have frustrated me). Even though things were out of control, I just did what I could and didn't worry about the rest. I guess I just tried to maintain a calm and patient attitude--and it worked. Attitude does count for a lot. Planning counts for something, pure effort counts for something, endurance contributes to effort, and attitude counts for something. The art of good attitude seems to be finding the golden mean between not caring and caring to the point where everything worries you...actually, that's not very clear...so, I believe that we should strive for excellence with everything. However, sometimes we have to settle for imperfection so that we can move on and do something else. We must accept the imperfection, yet go forward with the next task with the intention of achieving perfection. One extreme would be getting so frustrated as soon as things stop being perfect that you melt down and wait for a while to start back up, again expecting perfection. The other extreme would be approaching each task with a chill attitude, not really pushing yourself to do more than you can easily.
The idea that I'm trying to communicate sounds obvious, at least to me, as I'm writing it. But I know that it's the type of thing that doesn't help you until you've internalized it somehow, or habituated yourself to practice it. Controlling your state of mind is an activity, that takes practice, so although what I'm saying may be obvious, to put it to use is difficult (also, I find that I "forget" lessons like this, and I need life to continuously remind me of them).

Ratings of 2/17:
Days Since a Collapse: 1
Transgressions: 9
Effectiveness: Advancing

My apologies to Dan and Kyle for not contributing to the conversation over the last few days. My roomate has taken his computer to his girlfriend's apartment, and I'm back in the situation of not having easy access to the internet.
To remedy this situation, I've started the process of getting online. Eva's computer, which is much better than mine, is being fixed at Best Buy right now, and once we get it back, we're going to install some virus protection on it and get it online. In the meantime, I'll try to post when I can.
After my last post, I reflected more on the criteria for performance. I think that the criteria should cover accomplishments from the back-end, somewhat objectively. Here's what I mean by this: I entertained the idea of using "How Well I Stuck to My Schedule", or something like that, as a criterion for perfomance. The problem with that, as I see it, is that it says nothing about whether the schedule was well constructed, or, whether what was accomplished with the schedule is valuable. Rather than using this, I would want to continue using a criterion like "Effectiveness", because it judges what was actually accomplished.
Regarding a tangential issue, I made a point in the fall about not penalizing myself for things beyond my control. I still agree with this principle, in general. However, I still want to focus on the end, rather than the process. In other words, if I have good intentions, set out to do something, and because of something beyond my control, my endeavor is not successful, I won't reward myself for that (I won't penalize myself either). The judgment must be understood as a judgment of the product of action, and somewhat separate from me as the actor. Again, the point of this is to focus on things that are actually accomplished.
I also reconsidered on the issue of the Franklin virtues. Here's why I initially wanted to suspend my use of them: using them among my criteria created too much anxiety for me and thus cost me too much psychic energy to make it worth it. Here's why I think that that's wrong: ethics is fundamental. I still beleive that if you don't have ethics, you don't have sh*t. Basically, my intitial judgment erroneously gave more weight to the cost than the "benefit", but my new view holds the "benefit", or the justification, as being more important than the cost. While I was using the Franklin system, I was definitely more conscious of my behavior, and I acted more virtuously during that time. I think that setting a target maximium for acceptable transgression also helped me.
Concerning the list of virtues itself, I'm not 100% happy with it, but it's a great list, and I can abide by it for now. More discussion of this will follow.
In summary, I will try to post when I can, but I might not be able to post everyday. Furthermore, I will continue using the performance criteria that I was using pre-collapse, with the adjustments that I mentioned in my last post.
In regard to Dan's post: if you can sprint succesfully, without ever resting, more power to you. Definitely keep us posted on how that's going.

I had an idea about what I'm calling psychic energy. I believe that there is a connection between it and inspiration. Just as music, or some other stimulus can have the effect of pumping us up and giving us more physical energy, a sense of urgency, or inspiration, I suspect, can give us a boost. It is not to be depended on for a long exertion, but it can be integrated into the system periodically. In other words, lets say I read an Emerson essay, which is the most inspiring writing that I've ever read. After I'm done, I feel like my soul is on fire and I can take on the world. What I'm saying is that I have to realize that my momentary inspiration will be fleeting, and that eventually I will become sedentary again. That is why I need breaks and schedules and shit, and stamina building, to prepare myself for the long haul, when the inspiration wears off.
What about continual inspiration? I think it would loose it's effect, like all other stimulation when overdone. After a while it wouldn't work. However, I believe that a habitual meditation would be excellent and would give me dispersed boosts. To test this idea, I'm going to read Emerson, or some other inspiring writing, for a few minutes each day.
To recap my semi-organized, semi-stream of consciousness post, here's what I'm going to do for my return to the endeavor of living well and learning more about what that means:
1. Get better at allowing myself to take breaks.
2. Put less on my plate at first, and work up to a full schedule slowly.
3. Habitually meditate on inspiring writing or ideas.
4. (This one I think I only mentiond indirectly) I'm going to prioritize my values more distinctly. Treating others well is most important, followed later by producing works. So, if, like it is at the present moment, I can only do one or the other well, I'll do the former, and wait until I have more stamina to do the latter.
About our rating system:
It isn't great, but it could be worse. I'm definitely keeping my "Days Since a Collapse" score, because stability is a basic requirement of living well. I don't know about the Franklin score. It made me more conscious of my actions, which was great, but it also increased my anxiety by causing me to worry about every emotion, impulse, and reaction that I had throughout the day. I might pick that up again, but not right away. I'll write about the Franklin virtues in more detail later.
What I want to do is use two scores: one is "Days Since a Collapse" and the other is "Following my Plan", which will be how well I stick to my schedule and complete the items on my to-do list. I'll rate this with a 1 through 5, like the original system. It's rough, and may be replaced in as little as a few days, but I like it for now.

The first problem is clear and simple. The second problem is nebulous. Here's what I think was going on:
We recognize that we have physical limits. You can only run for so long before you must stop. I believe that there is at least one other analogous energy in people. I'll call it psychic energy. Before I get too much into it, I want to say that I can see that what I'm calling psychic energy may actually be a complex of multiple energies, but I'm treating it as one thing.
Psychic energy is spent when we try to get ourselves to do things contrary to our impulses. Even being "conscious", as Dan says, requires psychic energy. The only time we're not using this energy is if we're completely going with the flow and being passive. If you try to change your state of mind, or if you start working, or restraining yourself from eating something, or trying to refrain from shit talking, you're using this energy.
My hypothesis is that one's psychic stamina must be slowly built-up. This means that I need only a few tasks per day to start, with a lot of real rest, as described above. Over time I can work more, or add more things, but until then, I need to hold back, otherwise I collapse. I've actually experienced this phenomenon, of building up psychic stamina. When I first got to college, the work load seemed absurdly large. I struggled just to get everything done, and we all felt overwhelmed. Of course we were just at the beginning level, and things got much harder. But, things got harder and more intense gradually, so we became more capable of handing the load. Readings got longer, the science and math got more complex, and the philosophy got more technical, but my psychic stamina increased to meet the increasing challenge.
This means that for the time being I'm going to focus on the basics, and the most important things. I'm going to work and try to be a good friend, family member, and boyfriend. This means that I won't be writing for a while. I'm not sure how long the delay will be, but I don't want to rush things. I'm also not going to work out for now. My job is very physical, so I think that should be sufficient for now.

My crisis was a version of saying "fuck it", but it was spread out over about 6 hours. First I came home tired after a long day at work, and since I had to stay late, my schedule was messed up. I decided to skip the activity planned right after work and jump to the next one so that I would still be on schedule. This irritated me, and I was just distracted in general. I also felt sick. I had two sodas when I had limited myself to 1 per day. Then I didn't write, didn't do anything else, just fucked around, and went to bed very late.
Here are some things that I wasn't doing right. First of all, I wasn't giving myself real breaks during my break times. Here's how I looked at it at the time. I thought of a variety of things that can be relaxing at least some of the time. Included among these were playing video games, eating, sleeping, exploring new places (especially cities), and reading. In making my decision of what to do during my breaks, I figured that the primary concern was doing something that rested me. I went forward with the shaky premise that the things listed above all satisfied that condition. Then I figured that if they were all equally good according to the primary criterion, then I should select my acitivity based on which is most productive. Accordingly, I decided to read during my breaks, or explore new cities, but at the least, I would avoid video games and tv since they aren't productive at all.
The problem with this started because I was thinking of breaks as times when I can also do something productive while I'm resting. Then I started feeling pressure to read as much as I can during my breaks, so it became another thing on a to-do list, or another task. This undermined the primary reason for doing it in the first place, which is to rest myself. What I need to do from now on is to just rest, period, and not give a shit what i'm doing. It is time that I have to let go of...I can't expect to get productivity out of it (but if I exercise patience and look at things over the long run, it's indirectly productive since it recharges me for later.

What does it mean to live well? What would that look like? What would a person that lives well be like? What would he do? How would he respond to various situations? What would be his values? To what extent would his choices be a function of an a priori moral calculus, and to what extent would they take into account the particular nature of each individual circumstance?
These questions, for me, get at the heart of what I've been struggling with for as long as I can remember, and our blogger circle seems to exist for the purpose of our advancement with respect to these issues. One might argue that the answers to some or all of the above questions are not the same for everyone, or at all times. Maybe that's the case, but we shouldn't embrace the opposite extreme either. The opposite extreme would be absolute moral relativism, to the point where the idea of morality itself seems not to have much meaning. The issue for such a person might be, how can I get the most out of my experience? Or, how can I be happiest, or most contented?...
Damn it--I'm getting off topic. I tried writing a moral treatise for myself, to articulate where my thoughts are with regard to the issues that interest me, but I stopped, because the issues got too messy. I believe that ethics is immensely complex. Just having read some of the classic moral treatises of the west have made me less quick to think that these issues are simple. I find that as I write, I don't expose my premises, or I don't fully bring the reader to where my thoughts are. These problems are not fatal, it would just require revision and careful writing. For the time being, I need to get back on the ball, so I just want to make a few comments that were promised in my last post.

Transgressions: 10
Effectiveness: Staying the Same
Days Without a Collapse: 0

Still nothing...and to make me feel like even more of an asshole, I read an article in this month's Philly magazine about this girl that took over the Philly Animal Control and basically sacrificed her life to start turning the operation around, slowly. I highly recommend it. Ben Franklin and Emerson are awesome, but right now that girl is my hero.

Transgressions: 15
Effectiveness: Staying the Same (+ on the money, - on the fitness, nothing on the book, it kind of averages out to neutral).
Days Since a Collapse: 0

I'm bummed out to report that I had a collapse, using my active definition of collapse. I was on the eve of the mythical 7th day. I'm preparing to write about what happened, why, and how it can be prevented in the future. For now, I'm saying fuck it and wasting time until I go to sleep.

Transgressions: 2
Effectiveness: Advancing
Days Since a Collapse: 6

My work day was the center of my activce- Edit: WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?---->cars.html">utah used cars
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Transgressions: 2
Effectiveness: Advancing
Days Since a Collapse: 5

Advances:
1. Made $ (decided to leave this undefined, since it's hard to come up with an exact figure if you actually take into account rent, utilities, etc. On the whole, I'm making more money than I'm spending. Once I get a pay check I'll create a detailed budget, at which time I could probably give a daily money-made figure).
2. Calisthenics for 30 minutes and biking for 25 minutes.
3. Didn't write any new pages, but revised pages that I've already written.
4. Researched car buying faqs.

Transgressions: 1
Effectiveness: Advancing
Days Since a Collapse: 4

Advances:
1. Made $72.
2. Got 1/2 hour of intense exercise, plus moderate exercise dispersed throughout my workday.
3. Wrote 2 pages, began to edit earlier pages, and spent time thinking about stylistic issues that should impact the entire work.

My new job is glorious. Today I managed inventory and prepared orders. My co-workers are awesome (I think everyone has at least a college degree; regardless, they're all interesting, helpful, and pleasant). Tomorrow I'm going to start deliveries. We're allowed to have any coffee drinks from the cafe anytime we want. I got a cappucino and it was awesome. The product is definitely quality. I was pleased to fill an order for an espresso bar on Walnut Street in Philly.
Observation: My time is better spent when I truly immerse myself in an activity. I've been doing this well, and correcting myself when I slip. I'm just realizing how important it is. I've experimented with psychological posturing to help me with this. One thing I did was to pretend that I would do everything for a long time, even if I was only doing it for half an hour. Maybe that's not clear--if I'm constantly thinking about what I need to do next, and I'm trying to push the activity toward it's endpoint, I don't do as well. If I allow myself to shift gears, settle in, and pretend that I'll be doing it for an indefinite period, so that I don't worry about the endpoint, and I just take it one step at a time, I seem to get more out of it. Even though that's how I think about it, I still adhere to a schedule. Ironically, although maybe understandably, things go faster, or the endpoint actually is reached sooner, with the method that I'm describing.

Trangressions: 3
Effectiveness: Day off
Days Since a Collapse: 3

Today was lovely. I woke up at noon, had a leisurely breakfast with Eva, talked with my mom and sister on the phone, read Aristotle in bed, rode into town to get ice cream, went to the St. John's library to read more Aristotle, came home, read more, ate dinner with Eva, Ben, and Ada, and now I'm getting ready to sleep. I read about 50+ pages in the Ethics today, which, considering the work, is a lot. I should be finished by next weekend at the latest.
I was frustrated by two of my transgressions. They came very late in the day, and they were the result of sloppiness. I thought that I would finish with only a single point, but I fucked up twice right at the end. Oh well, three still isn't that bad.
Dan--I don't know if the system that I'm using, or the way that I'm approaching the scoring, is the best way, but the most important thing for me is that it's working. Remember how you said that you've never been able to go for a week straight? The same is true for me (other than my first week of college), but I think I might finally do it. Maybe you don't think I'm doing well, or doing as much as I should, but I've been more ethical and productive the last few days than I can remember at any time in the past. I love the system, and I'm not getting tired at all.

Transgressions: 2
Effectiveness: Advancing
Days Since a Collapse: 2

Advancements:
1. Wrote 4 pages.
2. Ran for 1 hour.
3. Began writing a letter to my dad that I've been meaning to write for a long.

Dan--yes, you have gotten my interest with your mysterious talk about the website. What is it? Also, here's how I deal with the problem that you pointed out about changes in behavior. To me, ethical transgressions are two-dimensional in the sense that they are defined both by discreet repetitions, but also by magnitude. So each discreet transgression receives a single base point, and if it has a great severity, you could add magnitude points on top of that. Actually, to take a step back, I think about a point as a unit, which is admittedly subjective. A single transgression could represent half of that unit in magnitude, or twice that unit, or any other factor. Let's take frugality. Suppose that I conclude that $30 per week on food for myself is a frugal yet reasonable amount. If I spent $31, I might resolve to be more exact the following week, but I don't think I would penalize myself an entire point, because it doesn't seem equal to my concept of the unit. At what point does it become equal to the unit? That's tricky, but it's not completely nebulous either. Maybe if I spend between $40 and $50 I'll penalize myself a point, since the excess in terms of percentage is high. Then it would go up from there. Certainly if I spent $100, with a chunk of it being blown on garbage like a box of candy bars, I would see that as more serious than an excess of $10 or $20. I might even penalize myself in other ways, in addition to multiple points in frugality. Does this make sense? I'm trying to be clear without being wordy. Maybe my system isn't good. Maybe it's too subjective. One more example, which has actually come up for me a couple of times. You'll notice that I've scored upwards of 3 points in tranquility. Those 3 points don't represent three discreet moments of anxiety, which would be silly; they represent a measurement of magnitude. On a 3 day I was basically at war with myself and probably manifested that outwardly to the world. On a 2 day I was fighting myself to do shit and at times throughout the day people could probably tell that that was the case, but it wasn't out of control. A 1 day is a common thing, where I'm agitated, and I'm anxious about being doing the right things and avoiding failure, but I'm not freaking out, and outwardly I probably appear tranquil.

EDIT: Dan, if my response to your comments about changes in behaviour either in this post or the last one seemed condescending, I apologize--it was unintentional (I was just reading them over and I think that they might sound that way). I meant to say, 1) your observation was slick, and I hadn't realized what you were pointing out in such a concrete fashion, and that 2) even though I hadn't consciously recognized the subtlety that you were pointing out, I realized that I had actually been accomodating it intuitively in my use of the system.

Transgressions: 3
Effectiveness: Advancing
Days Since a Collapse: 1

Today was a success, although I'm not celebrating yet since it was only day one of my new system. One of my transgressions was so minor that I almost wanted to mark myself as having 2 rather than 3, but it's not a big deal. I see what you mean about changes in behavior Dan--it's a great observation, and I have a way that I've been intuitively dealing with that, but I'm not going to write too much at the moment, so I guess I'll post about it later (I'm tired as shit and I'm about to go meet Eva in town). Advancements:
1. Got a job. $9/hr with possibility of pay raises (up to $12, I think) delivering coffee and repairing brewing equipment in Baltimore, Annapolis, and DC. The place seems awesome, I like the owner's philosophy, and a big part of my job will be learning about coffee, which should be fun. I also get to spend time getting to know Bmore and the district. I already got a bag of top of the line espresso beans.
2. Worked out: did some intense calisthenics shit for 35 minutes.
3. Wrote: I wrote 2 1/2 pages.
4. Furthered the process of soliciting general letters of recommendation.

Transgressions: 5
Effectiveness: Staying the Same

I spent much of the day contemplating my new system, and now I'm ready to test it. One of my goals is going to be sustainability, or, the number of days that I can go without abandoning a system, saying fuck it i'll start tomorrow, or despairing about my situation. In order to reflect my progress with this, I'm adding a third daily score: number of days since a collapse. A collapse can be any of the things I mentioned above. I want to make sure that I keep working, do my basic shit, and continue to act cheerful and fair toward others even when things are rough. I'll give an account of my system if it works, and I'm going to define "works" as: avoiding future collapses, resulting in 6/7 days of advancement (every day except 1 day off), and a maximum of 3 transgressions per day. If I make it a month meeting those criteria, I'll give an account. We'll see what happens.

Transgressions: 7
Effectiveness: Advancing

I feel like I've been on an emotional rollercoast lately. I don't want to get into that too much, but even from the last few entries it should make sense why I say that.
Today I made a big push on the job front, worked out for a little, and did some searching for a car. I didn't write, but I spent most of my day productively. I'm tired.

Transgressions: 11
Effectiveness: Regressing

I'm sick. I couldn't sleep last night, and this morning I decided to take the day off. I woke up at noon, still feeling terrible, but I also felt like I should work. I struggled with myself, part of me thinking that I should work, part of me thinking that I should take the day off to rest so that I can come back 100% tomorrow. I did niether. I did both half-assed, and as a result, nothing was accomplished. I had a depressing realization today. I know what I want to do, but I might not be able to do it. I WANT TO KNOW THE TRUTH, as in, the way things really are. I don't care if that turns out to be a philosophical pursuit, a scientific pursuit--I don't give a shit. I don't want to have to publish, I don't want to have to produce things for people. I want to read, and think, and conduct experiments...and if nothing comes of it, oh well. That's what I want to do. I want to know the true nature of space and time; I want to know if Kant was right about the limitations of epistemology; I want to know what Godel's proof is really proving, and what it's consequences are; I want to understand the arguments about God, and perhaps judge their validity; I want to know where our feelings and thoughts come from, where language comes from, and what the nature of our physical perceceptions is. I want to live in a small apartment, with a modest kitchen, and books, and notebooks, and perhaps a basic lab, and a computer. I want to wake up and contemplate. Sleep when I'm tired, eat when I'm hungry, but mostly contemplate. And I want to be able to work at my own pace, and not be afraid of any conclusions, or saying things that are unpopular or contrary to established ideas. I want to crawl out of the fucking cave. But I need fucking money. I hate this shit. I have to package myself, and finesse, and fill out forms, and compete. I don't want to compete and do all that crap. Maybe I'm stupid, does that mean I have to relinquish my dream? Even being at a university would be frustrating. I don't want to publish and give lectures. I'd love to talk to others, bluntly, not afraid to say things--I don't want to be in a profession that requires me to present the appearance of knowing when I actually don't.

Transgressions: 2
Effectiveness: Advancing

Today I wrote 10 pages, which is the most that I've written in a single day so far. The great thing is that I'm happy with what I'm creating. Also, I went with Eva to cash some checks and make a withdrawl to get funds for a car. The car deal didn't go through, but we spent time looking for alternatives, and soon we should be driving. Also, I nearly finished section 3 of the Ethics.

Transgression: 1
Effectiveness: Day off

Sunday is my day off, so I wasn't striving to advance myself. I did succeed in having a relaxing day, which will give me energy for next week. I was wondering earlier whether I should consider things like finishing a book, or watching an intelligent film as an advancement. It is one of my goals to refine myself through exposure to great culture, so in a sense I feel like they should be considered advancements. However, my material condition rarely changes in any immediate way when I finish a book, so perhaps one could argue that they are good for planting the seed for eventual action, but in itself it's not an advancement. I don't know which arguement is right, and I'm not even sure how much it matters (in other words, what's at stake in figuring this out?). For now I'll mention those things, but only weigh them slightly when determining my effectiveness, i.e., if I haven't also worked out and/or written, then I probably won't award myself a positive effectiveness rating for just reading. So far I have finished studying Mozart's Idomeneo, read the introductory materials to Eva's new cookbook (a good cookbook is more than just recipes), and now I'm working on Aristotle's Ethics.

Transgressions: 2
Effectiveness: Advancing

Today was triumphant. My theory was correct, at least for today, and at least for my temperment. That's cool if you can do it some other way Dan, but I think I've stumbled upon a much better system for myself. My transgressions were kept to a very low minimum, with the transgression of justice being very mild. Tranquility is something that I think I will only stop violating once I have more stability in my routine and system. Until then, I am naturally anxious about how things will turn out.
About my effiectiveness: I went for an intense, 1 hour run this evening, and I wrote 4 good pages in my novel. These were the goals that I set for myself, and they were accomplished in the manner that I had planned. I also started the process of transferring money to allow for the purchase of a car. Oh yeah, and I set up a system in the house to prevent people from eating ingredients for future meals by accident. Today I more than made up for yesterday. Am I violating humility with the tone of this post? If so I'll go and add another mark.
Yeah Kyle, that was me that posted about Gordo's. I lived in San Francisco for a summer and spent about a month there at various times prior to that. It's definitely my favorite city on the west coast, and I plan to visit often when I have a stable financial situation. My girlfriend grew up in SF, and she loves it. We lived on 6th Ave right past Kirkham, about 6 blocks from Gordos. I'd cop those bean and cheese super burritos like nothing else. We went to Greens once and that was awesome...Tart to Tart was another favorite. Shit dude, there are so many awesome places, I'm not even going to get into that.

Transgressions: 11
Effectiveness: Regressing

Based on my ratings it would appear that I did terribly today. The earlier part of the day was quite good--I woke up, wrote a necessary letter, ate lunch with Eva, worked out, ran some errands, set up an account and posted a resume on Monster.com, wrote two more letters, and then finished studying Mozart's Idomeneo. At that point, if I had sat down and wrote until Eva came home, I'd be advancing and with only a handful of penalty points. Instead, Sam made some cookies and put out some candy and turned on a movie. I felt drained, and I also felt especially temped to relax because it's Friday night, although that doesn't mean anything for me lately. I basically folded. I gorged on junk and said fuck it for the night. Shame on me. On the bright side, I think I understand partially why I failed today. I can't just have a list of things of things I want to get done and begin the day with the mentality that I just need to spend as much time and energy on them as possible. That way I feel like I'm fighting something infinite, that my effort will be endless, and that I'll never rest, and if I do rest, I feel like I'm running out of time and I start to panic. I've experimented with this method, and it sucks. A way better method that I want to use is planning out goals over a long period of time, and accomplishing reasonable portions of them daily. I'll schedule work time and break time, and during break time, I'm not going to think about my projects. It's like school. You don't try to do the whole year in one night. You do your work for one class, only worrying about that, or a paper maybe. But by the end of the year you've done a whole year. Maybe that analogy is terrible. If my idea is good, it should get results. We'll see.

I'm going to rate myself using two systems for now--one will be the shared system, based on Ben Franklin's virtue list, and the other will be a modified form of my + and - system. I like the former because it gives me an occasion to reflect on my daily ethical behavior, which is essential, and I like the latter because it hammers home the point that I need to make my dreams reality. The modification to the + and - system is that it will only have three total scores--advancing, staying the same, or regressing. The application of those should be self-evident from their names. My commentary will be a justification of my score. Things like cleaning, dishes, making food, etc., will not be discussed unless they teach me something that I will use later or materially improve me in some other lasting way. That stuff is important and will be reflected on the ethics list, in categories like order and cleanliness, but they won't appear here.
1/19: Advancing
I quit my job at the SPCA, and I have started searching for a better job. Today I sent out two resumes, and networked with a former supervisor. My networking looks promising already--it might land me a job at a law firm in DC. Either way, what I did today in terms of job searching was essential to advancing my professional and financial standing. Yesterday I filled out several applications, and already I have two offers. By next week I should be working.
I ate moderately today and exercised, which should bring me closer to my health ideal.

Kyle and Dan have given me very thoughtful feedback about my system proposal. It is clear to me that there are serious problems with it. Here are some of the problems that I've realized or have had pointed out:

1. There's no objective basis for scoring: Dan wanted to make it so that whatever system we use has some objective criteria for awarding points. This makes sense to me. The subjectivity of scoring is a weakness with the current system as well as with the one that I proposed.
2. The 1s 2s and 3s don't really make sense with a daily rating scheme: I realized this problem today. Some goals are spread out, and require small steps everyday. Each step might warrant a 1, but the overall accomplishment of the goal should warrant more than a series of 1s. Should the score correspond to the effect/time ratio, with a higher ratio being better? So say your goal was to earn 100$, and one way you do it is by working, and another way you do it is by investing money wisely so that you make 100$ without ever having to do anything--would the first yield a 1 and the second a 2 or 3? Is it about shrewdness, and accomplishing a lot in a small amount of time. That seems to measure shrewdness only, which is part, but not whole. Or should the numbers be something more abstract, like pure magnitude. Say your goal was to learn a language. Studyng for 2 hours would warrant a 1, 3 hours a 2, and 4 hours a 3, something like that, so that the score is a function of time spent doing the activity. Is it absolute time or time efficiency? Or maybe it should be purely based on accomplishment without considering time, but it's rare that activities that occupy a single day can be distinguished as quantatively more or less virtuous. Ugh...my writing here is sloppy, and I feel like I shouldn't spend too long revising because it takes away from time actually doing things, but then I end up with poorly expressed ideas.
3. Ethics is important and I think that the system should reflect the ethical integrity of the day.
4. Some goals can't be given a negative score with the system, such as reading a book. If you're not reading you get a 0, if you do read you get a 1-3, but you can't negative read. I guess you could ram your head against a wall and get stupider. But seriously, the fact that the system just reduces 1-5 down to 1-3 for some tasks doesn't help at all.
5. Mundane shit like organizing mail and brushing your teeth is important, I believe, and while it may or may not fall within the sphere of ethics, regardless, I feel like the system should give incentive to do those types of things as well as more consequential things. The proposed system doesn't include these types of activities.

Things I I like about the proposed system that I would want a good system to have:
1. The key thing is that I feel like actual, concrete progress should be stressed. I can get up at 7, brush my teeth, shave, and shower by 7:15, dress and eat breakfast by 7:30, get to work by 8, work hard from 8-4:30, come home, read a periodical, read a bit of a book, go online, make dinner, eat dinner, read some more, and listen to some music, and overall, my day would not have brought me closer to a higher life than my present one. In other words, theoretically, barring pay raises or budgeting, after 10 years of that you would still be living in the same place, with the same overall impact on the world (which is not much at the jobs we have, from what I understand), with the same standar of living. Each day under the old system you would get a 2 or a 3, but you haven't accomplished much at all. That is unnacceptable, because I want to live in a beautiful house in a lovely neighborhood in Philadelphia, with a stocked kitchen, an extensive library, a nice wardrobe, good physical condition, a clean, well running car, a good computer, surrouded by good people, having good relationships with them, and doing work on a daily basis that is significant and virtuous. Right now I'm living in a lame town, with an ok kitchen, no personal library, dressed like a riff-raff, in somewhat shameful physical condition, no car, a piece of shit computer, and working a job that is virtuous but not very significant (the only thing that I have from my dream list is good friends and good relationships with them). How to get from where I am now to where I want to be? I'll need money, personal work and creations, like a written book, education, and possibly an improved character. Basically I want to demand from myself that I work everyday to bring myself closer to my ideal.

Maybe we could use Ben Franklin's system. We could report how many marks we have each day in the various ethics categories (marks being bad). Like, today I did well, but I have to give myself two marks in the temperance category, because I ate to dulness both at lunch and at dinner. Two of the categories, resolution and industry, might do what I tried to do with my proposed system. Industry requires that we do meaningful work, and resolution requires that we follow through with our ideas. So if I didn't write for my book, I'd be failing resolution, and if I didn't do anything useful at all, I'd be failing in industry. Actually, the more I'm writing this, the more I'm liking the idea. Let me know what you guys think.

I just read the discussion about the system proposal. Here are some examples of things that would warrant negative scores:

Goal: End each month with a 300$ surplus from my income.
Say you calculate things and figure out that you'll have enough discretionary money to go out to eat twice a week, at a cheap restaurant. The first time you do it, it wouldn't affect the score. The second time it wouldn't affect it either. The third time you'd give yourself a minus, and if you did it so much that you actually ended the month with less money than you started the month, you'd get a -3

Goal: Learn language X
This is the type of goal that you could easily regress with. Say you invested two weeks of solid effort starting a program. Then you stopped for two weeks, then when you picked up again, you were as good as you were when you started. Well, you'd have to give yourself as many minus points as you did plus points.

Goal: Get girl X to go out with me
Day 1-you're macking on girl x, and she flirts back, and gives you her phone number...this would warrant a plus score
Day 2-you can girl x and lose it and act like an idiot on the phone and she hangs up on you, or becomes lukewarm..this would warrant a negative score.

Goal: Build a hut in the woods
Week 1-you rock it like Thoreau, nail some boards, etc.
Over the next few weeks-the weather forcast says snow, you figure you should throw a tarp over your shit, but you get lazy. It snows, and you let it pile up and sit there without cleaning it off. Weeks later, when the snow melts, you discover that the boards started to rot and fell apart. This would warrant negative points.

Basically, I feel like some goals are one step, clearly accomplished or not type things, like going to the bank. A task like this would not affect your score. There are some tasks that you can only move forward in, like reading a book. That would get you a positive if you did it, but a zero if you didn't. Then there are tasks that are a continuum, and you move up the continuum until you achieve the goal. In these, when it's possible to slide back down, that's where the negative score comes in. My whole thinking behind this was that I wanted to emphasize actual change in the real conditions of your life. In the fall, I'd get a 2 or a 3 or a 4, and honestly, nothing seemed to be accomplished after all of it. Those scores seemed to reflect discipine, which is good, and it's essential to achieving what you want, but discipline on its own isn't worth much, other than aesthetics. So you could wake up right at x oclock, right on the dot, finish breakfast etc in 15 minutes sharp, kick ass at work, but then slack after work, and that would earn a 2 or 3 in the current system. Supposing your kicking ass at work didn't affect your pay, nor did it do anything to improve anyone else's condition in the world, you really haven't changed your life, just lived within the prior existing paradigm. If I get a positive score, I have to be able to point to something at least fairly concrete that I can show is worth something that I generated during the day. If I undermined something that was worth something during the day, I'm doing worse.

A word of clarification about my proposed system. It has nothing to do with ethics in the sense that I think people normally mean ethics. It's about being effective--applying your will to making things happen. Hitler's rise to power in Germany would have earned him straight 2s and 3s. So obviously, especially with that example, I want to say that this system is not meant to score everything that's important in life. Overall, I think ethics is the most important thing. If you don't have ethics, you don't have shit. You could decide that becoming more ethical is one of your goals, in which case you would be grading ethics, but the fact that it's ethics would only be incidental to the fact that it's a goal. I feel like Dan and I, at least, are struggling to execute our will, make dreams reality. This is a difficult thing, and encouraging this is what I had in mind when conceiving the new system.
Score for 1/10: 1
I did everything I wanted to do today in order to advance myself. I worked out for a while, wrote two pages in my book... also, I got a lot done in terms of planning and preparation for making Eva's birthday cool. Once I start budgeting I can count working as an advancement since I will know that my money will be accumulating.

I'd like to propose a new rating system, one which I've already described to Dan. It would be a number system, like the current one, but the score would reflect the extent to which you've used the day to actualize your ideal vision of your life. The worst rating would be a -3, and the best rating would be a 3. Negatives in this system mean that you've actually regressed, or moved your life further away from how you'd like it to be. 0 means that your life will basically be the same tomorrow. Say one of the things that you'd like to happen would be to lose weight, to pick an easy example. If you lost weight during that day, you would get a positive score, if nothing happened you would get a zero, and if you gained weight you would get a negative. The absolute values of the scores just represents three basic degrees--slightly, moderately, extremely (i.e., 1 or -1 indicates a slight shift, 2 or -2 indicates a moderate shift, and 3 or -3 indicates an extreme shift). I'd like to hear feedback from the other participants about this proposed system.
Rating for 1/9: 0
Today I worked, cleaned, cooked dinner, straightened up my room, and started planning. I gave myself a zero because I basically kept myself afloat, but didn't progress. Hopefully my planning today will translate into forward movement starting tomorrow. I drew up plans for myself to accomplish two goals: one is to write my novel, the other is to get down to 175 lbs. A third goal for which I'll soon create a plan is to become financially independent. This third goal would only be achieved in the distant future, but I can start making it happen today, mainly be budgeting, creating a monthly income surplus, and, once I've saved enough money, I can begin investing it. My first two goals are more immediate, and have scheduled activities for tomorrow. I plan to spend 2 hours writing tomorrow, and my goal is to write one single spaced page (i'm trying to keep my goals reasonable so that I don't get overwhelmed and say fuck it). I also plan to do calisthenics tomorrow for 45 minutes. I want to have a draft of my novel by May 1st, and a polished manuscript by June 1st. I need to write 20 pages per week, allowing myself a full week of days off between now and then. For my weight loss, my goal is to lose 1 lb each week for the next three weeks, then 2 lbs a week for the next 4 weeks, then 3lbs a week after that, and each goal shift corresponds to an increase in scheduled workouts.
No more talking. Starting now, it's all about applying the will to see the eventual actualization of my dream version of my life.