My life is relatively rich right now. I spend a lot of time with my friends. I have multiple creative outlets: I have a comic that’s semi-popular, and I’m making a tv show with my friend. Work is fun and rewarding. But it’s not enough. (Of course! It’s never enough!)

I’ve analyzed the problem to be three things: 1) I don’t have a larger purpose, 2) I still live at my parents, and 3) I haven’t been actively working at self-improvement. Number 2 isn’t really a big problem. I don’t mind living at home, but I miss some of my independence.

When it comes to number 3, I feel as if I’ve seen some regression. I had a couple habits — writing down tasks in the morning and keeping my desk clean — that I dropped after moving to a new location. At least I’ve been able to keep up the e-mail thing and not checking it incessantly throughout the day. I recently read 25 Ways to Win with People, and that’s made me think a lot about self-improvement. It recommends a 12 week process of focusing on 2 ideas at a time. This kind of contradicts what Babauta preaches about focusing on one habit at a time. I’m still young, so maybe I’ll make it a 24 week process and see what happens. First, though, I’m going to get back into the habit of writing down in the morning what I need to do.

One of the chapters in the aforementioned book had an anecdote about an abolitionist, which got me to think about something tangential: purpose. There are lots of things I enjoy doing, but I don’t think anything fills me with fire as when I’m writing about politics. (I don’t feel this all the time, but certain articles just make me feel great.) I was thinking about how the abolitionist had a great evil to fight: Wouldn’t that make finding a purpose easy? Then again, nowadays we have the great crisis that is climate change. But then that got me thinking about torture and prison reform. Also, I simply can’t imagine devoting myself to one thing and one thing only. Don’t I need a creative outlet as well? Don’t I need these other projects? At least I can take the time to learn a lot more about climate change and the environment, especially what’s happening locally. I feel like I don’t really know what it means to be a citizen; I only know how to complain on the internet. (See Chalkboard Manifesto.) Perhaps it may do some good to research some old citizens who made big changes in the nation.

Now what should I do with the weblog? I want to get back into writing about politics, but I don’t want to write idiotic things. I’ll just start writing and keep a close eye on what I’m doing. Another thing I want to do is tell more stories about my life. This will help me become a better storyteller. When I was younger I thought my life was dull, so I didn’t want to talk about my life that much. That’s what other kids wrote in their weblogs (xanga was big back then), and I wanted to be different. Their weblogs were often boring. Thinking back on it, I don’t think it was the subject matter that was dull but it was the writing that was horrendous. In any case, I don’t think my life is quite so dull anymore, so I’ll be writing more about it.

And speaking of bad writing, I’m done rambling for now. Goodness, do I need more practice writing.