My Kids in the Military

Yesterday was Veterans’ Day. Since I haven’t been blogging to long it didn’t dawn on me until this morning I should probably write something. As a veteran myself I have plenty of thoughts about the day I can share.

I read a post from the Dad and Buried blog titled, “I Won’t Let My Son Join the Military.” It was a thoughtful article about why he didn’t want his son to join and I completely understand his feeling. Having service in the Navy for 8 years and deploying to Iraq during OIF/OEF (Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation Enduring Freedom) I’m not sure I want my kids to join the military either. I didn’t have a problem with his post, but I feel like he is a little misinformed.

When most people think of the military they think of the Army and the Marines running around, kicking doors in, and possibly getting blown up by IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices). Movies like Black Hawk Down, Lone Survivor, and American Sniper paint the military with a “we only fight” blush. They rarely think of the hundred or so other jobs the military has to offer. Many of these don’t ever see combat.

When I joined the Navy, I went in as a Seaman Apprentice. This was a glorified term for Boatswain’s Mate’s bitch. We did all of the stupid shit the BM’s could think of including some cool stuff like sailing the ship. Shortly afterwards, I became a Religious Program Specialist, which is a fancy term for Chaplain’s bitch. I was an admin personnel and spent most of my time getting ready for Sunday service. I wasn’t kicking down doors or riding in HUMVEEs because most of my time was spend behind a computer.

People join the military for many reasons. Thanks to 9/11 there’s an entire generation who joined up to fight terrorism and for the “love of America.” Many of us didn’t have some higher calling or purpose. We went for the college benefits or we had nowhere else to go.

We hid in the shadows. We weren’t special forces but support personnel. We became the admin, the cooks, the supply men and women. We didn’t want to give our lives for our country but still wanted to do something honorable. We went to work, collected our paycheck, and went home. No muss, no fuss.

To this day, I’m not a “God and Country” kind of guy. I love America, warts and all, and I’m thankful for my time in the military but I don’t see either with the same rose colored glasses others might. They made me into the man I am today and for this I’ll always be grateful. More importantly, I am grateful to the men and women I served with and I don’t want to think of my life without them. They made, and continue to make, me a better person.

Do I want my kids to join the military? No, not really, but those reasons are my own. I will say if they do serve I’ll be extremely proud of them and do whatever I can to make their experience better. Since I can’t stop them, God knows my parents wanted to, you might as well help them.

Happy Veterans Day to all my brothers and sisters in arms. Thank you for making me a better person.

It is a bad idea or a GOOD IDEA?

At this point, I’ve written over 15 blog posts which I’m still a little shocked happened. If you’ve read any of them you know each and everyone of them is AMAZING! They are smart and well written. They are filled to the brim with insight after insight. I know you are hanging on my every word waiting with anticipation to find out what will come next. RIGHT… (said oozing with sarcasm in case it was missed.)

Okay, I know this is not the case, except maybe for my Mom and Dad. (I love you, both, and I appreciate you reading these!) I’m not some prophetic scholar whose every word is gold. I’m just a guy who has some things to say and wanted to write them down. I am proud of my work thus far but know this is only the beginning and I have a long way to go.

When I started this blog I decided to make a list of topics I thought were interesting. Some were easy to write about while others would take a little research. It’s a pretty hearty list and I try to add to it whenever I get a chance. The problem I’m noticing is every time I look at the list I start to freeze up. I look at the list and I get writer’s block.

Then something happens. I hear Seth Godin in my head saying there’s no such thing as writer’s block and I find a way.

“No such thing as writer’s block? That’s crazy talk, Joe. I’ve experienced it before and it’s real.” Sure, there are times when it feels like I have nothing write about because my mind is blank. I think we’ve all been there. What Seth means is fear and the resistance are kicking in preventing us from moving forward. We can’t come up with any “good ideas” and we aren’t sure what should be written.

This is a problem I’ve had for a long time. I only want to come up with good ideas because no one wants the bad ones. The problem is I’m forced into an all or nothing scenario. It’s either perfection or failure. I can’t have bad ideas or people with think I’m dumb. If I’m dumb I’ll be mocked. If I’m mocked I won’t have any self-esteem, and on, and on, and on, forever. This line of think has conditioned us to either have something smart to say or nothing at all.

I’m sure you’ve heard people say, “There are no bad ideas.” Though we could go back and forth debating the merits of this statement, I believe it’s true, there are no bad ideas. The reason being, it’s the bad ideas which lead to the good ones. Rome wasn’t built in a day and good ideas don’t come out of thin air. By coming up with idea after idea the valuable ones will rise to the top.

On the flip side, an idea might sound bad to one person but could be a good idea to another. “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure” sort of deal. Maybe it’s difficult to execute and with the right person it becomes valuable. Maybe the idea isn’t “good” because it’s incomplete and needs to be develop.

I have a post like that right now. I’ve rewritten it twice now and it’s still not there yet. The idea isn’t bad, it’s just incomplete.

The thing is ideas aren’t inherently good or bad. They’re only ideas. Their designation is in the “eye of the beholder.” This is what I think about now when I write. I give myself permission to suck, to have bad ideas, and to move on with the post. I embrace the bad ideas. As Seth told Tim Ferriss in his latest podcast, he’s written over 7400 blog posts (he writes one every day) and he’s only had a handful of great ones. If a prolific writer and thinker like Seth Godin can have that many “bad ideas” why can’t I?

Be okay with the suck. Be okay with bad ideas. Remember it’s the fastest way to the good ones.

You May Be Wrong but You May Be Right!

This past Tuesday were the midterm elections in the US. It was difficult to miss with all the signs, ads, and people yelling about it everywhere. You couldn’t take a piss without seeing something about voting or the elections.

Now, I don’t care whether you voted or not or your political party. It’s not what I’ll be discussing here. The point here is to talk about something, I believe, is the root cause of many of our problems in the US right now. The issue is empathy.

America has an empathy problem. As a country, we pride ourselves on being superior to other countries in the world. It’s been like this for decades. When an individual has a superiority complex it’s difficult for them to have empathy for other “lesser” people. They are apathetic to other people’s plights and focus on a “me first” mentality.

“Cool story, Joe, but what does this have to do with the price of tea in China?” First, you said it wrong. It’s “Jina!” Second, I’ll be happy to explain. Much of what is focused on during election years revolves around hot-button topics: healthcare, gun control, global warming, technology, etc. You name it and we’ll find a way to fight about it. The problem is these fights usually don’t lead to any productive resolutions. Two people argue about a particular topic until they are blue in the face and go home. Nothing was solved. Nothing productive happens. Just two people pissing in the wind.

We are emotional creatures and many times we will ignore the facts right in front of us for what we chose to believe. The smarter we are and the more we care about a topic the more likely we are to seek out information backing our point of view. The more information we have to support our side of an issue, the more we dig in. We don’t want to hear differing points of view because we KNOW we are right. If we’re right, everyone with differing opinions must be wrong.

In the book Think Like a Freak by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, they dedicated an entire chapter towards making persuasive arguments. One of my favorite points they make is acknowledging the others point of view. Even though the other person’s opinion is different doesn’t mean there isn’t any value to their point of view. Listening, understanding, and accepting the other side of the issue is a big step in making a better argument.

To illustrate my point, I’m going to use a topic near and dear to my heart: Cheerleading as a sport. At some point in high school, I decided cheerleading was not a sport and shared it with others. The reason for this has been lost to time but needless to say, it didn’t make me popular with the cheerleaders of our school. Since high school, I continued to double down on this argument and for years enjoyed standing on my soapbox debating this topic. (Let me say, I consider cheerleading extremely athletic and couldn’t do half the things they can. Honestly, when I think about it, my beef isn’t with cheerleading at all, but any athletic activity which decides to call it a sport).

As I look back on the cheerleading hill I decided to die on, I realized something important. I had zero empathy for the cheerleaders at my school. I KNEW I was right and they were clearly wrong. Who cares if there are cheerleading competitions? The only reason to have competitions is because of the activity of cheerleading. No cheerleaders, no cheerleading competitions. Period!

Though it’s taken longer than I care to admit, I was verbally attacking these women. Whether I meant to or not, I was telling these women what they care about didn’t matter. Their skills and talents didn’t matter. They were wrong and I was right. They were dumb and I was smart. I didn’t give two shits about their “opinion” because I had truth on my side.

While this might seem like a silly example, this is something we tend to do others every day with bigger and more important topics. Issues with education, climate change, gun control, and health care aren’t going away any time soon. If we are not willing to look within ourselves to at least acknowledge the validity of our oppositions’ arguments, we won’t be able to make any progress towards real change. You can accept their positions have merit and not be a sellout.

Life is filled with shades of grey and almost no topic out there is completely black and white. So why do we treat life this way? Why not embrace the grey to work on making things better?

I want to leave you with this Ted Talk by Cassie Jaye called Meeting the Enemy. Enjoy!

Bad Days to Good

Fuck, I am done with today. Hell, I was done with today before I woke up this morning. Was there anything wrong with today? Was there something I wasn’t looking forward to happening? Nope, not at all. I just wanted to roll over and go back to sleep until tomorrow.

I got to work like normal and tried to fake it for the day but I didn’t make it. All I could think about was writing my next blog post and ensure it got my point across. This left little room to do actual work. To set at my desk and produce the work I’m getting paid to produce. Things get into my head like a brain bug and I have a difficult time focusing until they are out.

The funny thing is I wasn’t even excited about the writing today. I have over a dozen topics on my list of future posts but I wasn’t ready for any of them. There were chapters of books I wanted to reread or articles I needed to find. I wasn’t worried about the posts being perfect but I didn’t want to waste my time. I’ve committed to posting on this blog 5-6 times per week which is forcing me to post imperfect products. Still doesn’t mean they can suck.

I know I wrote a post on Monday about positivity and how it affects your life. If I didn’t believe it when I wrote it, which I did, I sure believe it now. I’m tired, bitter, cranky, depressed and anxious, and all I want to do is go home to cry in the dark. (Is that Dashboard Confessional I hear?) I would categorize today as a bad day.

Still, I’m ok with this classification. Bad days can be a good thing. Bad days helps us appreciate the good days if we let them. Not every day can be sunshine and rainbows. The trick is to not let ourselves get sucked in too deep by the bad days. We need to stare at the bad days, embrace them, and let them go. Once our head hits the pillow, the day is over, and we get to start a new day.

Each day is a do-over. Each day is a chance to be better than we were the day before. The trick is to not be defined by the bad days or the good days but realize each day is what we make of it.

Sitting here writing, I’m glad today was a bad day. I’m glad I failed today. I was able to recognize my mindset, my feelings, and my shortcomings. Now I can take a look at my failures today to make tomorrow better. That’s exactly what I’m going to do too. I’m going to make tomorrow better.

Reading is Fun for Mentals…

For much of my life I’ve hated reading. I found it time consuming and difficult. Even if what I was reading was interesting I would find myself falling asleep fairly quickly, never getting too far. Hell, I disliked read so much I found the back of cereal boxes to be too much sometimes. I still have a difficult time reading longer articles, finding myself stopping part of the way through to do something else. It’s something I’ve struggled with for years but thankfully it’s becoming something I enjoy.

There is usually a reason people dislike doing something. I blame my dislike, almost hatred, for reading on my time at school. School almost singlehandedly killed my desire to read. Day in and day out we were forced to read some of the dumbest fucking books, the school system, called literature and clinically written textbooks. Books like Ethan Frome and the Scarlett Letter dominated the curriculum making me want to bang my head on the wall repeatedly. Even things like summer reading lists forced me to choose books others thought were worthwhile instead of giving me parameters to choose for myself.

Now that I’ve gotten this off my chest I want to talk about the real reason for this post. I love my kids and, like most parents, I want my kids to grow up better than I am. I want them to be physically and mentally prepared for everything life might throw at them. I want them to develop the love of learning, I feel, the educational system tried to beat out of me. This starts with reading.

Even before I knew how important reading was to my kids’ development, I would spend almost every night reading to them. Honestly, a good portion of my original thought process was selfish. I wanted to be a better read and I thought one of the best ways accomplish my goal was read to my kids every day. It’s worked too. The more I’ve read to them the more confident I’ve become as a reader. This wasn’t my only reason for reading to my kids. I had fond memories of my Dad reading to me before bed and I thought it was important to pass on the tradition.

I’ve since learned there are other important benefits to reading to your kids regularly. According to an article in the Washington Post by Amy Joyce, “Study after study shows that early reading with children helps them learn to speak, interact, bond with parents and read early themselves, and reading with kids who already know how to read helps them feel close to caretakers, understand the world around them and be empathetic citizens of the world.” The crazy thing is it seems to be working. My oldest is consistently one of the best readers in his class and continues to read grades above his level. Time will only tell if this continued practice will work with my two younger kids.

While I’m pumped to hear my son is one of the best readers in his class it, honestly, means very little. It’s not like it’s a competition with the other parents in his class. (Ok, maybe a little bit). What I find more exciting is his desire to read on his own. When he can’t sleep he regularly pulls out one of his books and reads on his own. That’s the win for me.

At some point I will write an entire post about my thoughts on learning vs education but I have one final thought to share. Learning is one of the most important traits we can develop in our kids. One of the most fundamental way we can foster this ability and desire is reading. The earlier and the better your kids can read the more they are able, and willing, to learn. The more they learn, the better prepared they will be for anything life throws at them and isn’t this truly what we want for them?

Please, if you have kids in your life read to them every day. I promise you won’t regret it.

I Can’t, Can I?

I’ve been on an elimination kick lately. There are tons of stuff in my life I want to get rid of to free up time, space, and energy to do what’s truly important to me. I’m getting rid of unwanted items from my house, I’ve deleted most of my game and social media apps from my phone, and I’m eliminating negative self-talk and other negative influences from my life. One of these bad influences is the phrase, “I can’t.”

Why am I trying to nicks the word “can’t” from my vocabulary? Frankly, it’s lazy. When someone says, “they can’t” do something what they typically mean is something completely different. It could be “I don’t want to” or “it’s not a priority right now.” It could mean, “I don’t know how” or “I’m not good at this.” It rarely means, “Under NO circumstance could I, would I, or should I have the ability to do to (fill in the blank here).”

The thing I’ve come to learn is words have meaning. (No shit, Joe, of course they do). What I mean is if you say something to yourself enough times it becomes true. Some people call it “the Secret,” but I call it self-talk. This self-talk can be positive and negative, as I’ve wrote about already, and can have a profound influence on your life. If you call yourself a loser enough times, you’ll become a loser. If you tell yourself you “can’t” do something, it’ll comes true.

Using “can’t” isn’t necessarily an issue if it’s used sparingly but I find people use the word too frequently. Then it’s not a matter of “can” vs “can’t” but “can’t” becomes the default.

I truly believe people can do just about anything they want to do. Sure there are things like becoming President of the United States which are near impossible but on a scale of 1 to becoming the President, most things are possible. Most things we “can’t” do fall into one of two categories: uninteresting or scary. This turns “can’t” into “I don’t wanna!”

When you say, “I can’t” you are lying to yourself and those around you. You might be afraid, busy, or uninterested, but completely unable is highly unlikely.

This is why I’m working on removing “can’t.” First I want to be more honest with those I care about, and second I don’t want to be governed by fear. I want to learn new things. I want to have new experiences. I want to be more present in my life. Unfortunately, I can’t I’m unable to do this with my old way of thinking. I need to change things up a little.

I want to change. I can change. I will change.

Practical Optimism

I’ve always considered myself a pessimist by nature. Yes, I know what I said in my last post and, at times, I definitely feel like I’m a Dashboard Confessional song away from being Emo. It’s exhausting and drains most of my energy. Up to this point I’ve talked a bunch about fear, anxiety, and being negative. Honestly, they are the easiest topics for me to write about since they are major driving factors in my life. They’ve been a part of me for so long they are ingrained into my being.

But that’s not the point of this blog. It’s not to focus on how my life was but what my life can become. Now that I’ve spent all of this time trying to fight the negative aspects of my I think it’s time to go in another direction. I want to focus on practical optimism.

According to the Mayo Clinic here are some of the possible benefits of positive thinking:

Increased life span
Lower rates of depression
Lower levels of distress
Greater resistance to the common cold
Better psychological and physical well-being
Better cardiovascular health and reduced risk of death from cardiovascular disease
Better coping skills during hardships and times of stress

I don’t know how true these are and from what I understand researcher don’t know why being positive can have these benefits. I have to ask, does it matter? Don’t you think it’s worth trying even if there is a slim possibility one of the above list items could happen? I think so.

“Sure, Joe, I’d like those benefits and I want to make a change but I have no idea where to start.” Touché! The best place to start is at the beginning, with the negative self talk. The Mayo Clinic states there are four main types of Negative Self-Talk: Personalizing, Catastrophizing, Polarizing, and, my personal favorite, Filtering. Some might be more prevalent than others but they can easily creep in and cause damage.

Now the thing us pessimists need to remember is change isn’t quick. It requires practice, patiences, and persistence. Positive thinking is a skill we need to work on everyday to become stronger. Here are some things you can work on to turn that frown upside down.

Morning Journaling: Write a paragraph in a journal, on the computer, or in the notes section of your phone, in the morning about something positive you are looking forward to during the day. Maybe it’s a trip, seeing some friends, your favorite show being on in the evening. One thing, 5 sentences, explaining what it is and why you’re excited.
Gratitudes: Every night before you go to bed and think of a couple of things which really pissed you off throughout the day. Maybe is was an abundance of traffic, or a fight with the spouse. Then say why you were grateful for that experience. You could be grateful you weren’t in the accident or, worse, the hospital. It’s about finding ways to turn negatives into positives.
Regular check-ins: throughout the day think about the negative you were focusing on and see how you can make it positive. Get yelled at by the boss or spouse. Maybe there’s something you can work on improving by turning it in constructive criticism. Set a few times and take a couple of minutes to the negative into positive.
Add more funny: When it comes to tv, movies, or life in general, there’s no shortage of drama for you to encounter. They say laughter is the best medicine and adding a sitcom, romcom, stand up special, or comic from the funnies into your life will help you focus less on the drama.
Cut out the negative people: They say you’re the average of the five people you hang around. If those people are always negative it will be difficult to change yourself. Sometimes you need to cut the negative people from your life. While this is often easier said than done, especially with coworkers and family, you can take steps to not let them bring you down. Maybe lesson contact or don’t engage when complaining about something that happened to them.

Now if you’re anything like me you might be worried about long term sustainability of this habit change. I totally understand because trust me I right there with you. What I recommend it taking two weeks focus solely on becoming more positive. This doesn’t mean sit around your house all day trying only think positive thoughts. Instead live your life but add some of the suggestions listed above.

As a fellow pessimist, I understand any possible apprehension but if you are willing to commit to this process I am too. For the next two weeks I will be posting on twitter what I’m doing each day to stay positive so you can follow along. This way you don’t have to go in this alone and you can hold me accountable. Lets jump into this together.

The Positives of Being Negative

When you think about a pessimist, who do you envision? My typical pessimist looks like an emo kid sitting alone in the dark. They tend to focus on what could go wrong instead of what could possibly go right. They are the boo hooers, the naysayers, and the negative Nancys (or Nathans… Happy Mom?)

These doom and gloom people in your life can be exhausting but what if you could harness their powers for good? What if you could take this focus on the negative and use it to make your life better? Would you be interested?

“But, Joe, what kind of devil magic is this in which you speak?” you might ask in your best Yoda impression. “Surely, there’s no positive about being negative.” Well, you’re wrong… and don’t call me Shirley. The answer is a little something called fear setting.

The first time I heard the term Fear Setting it was while listening to the 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss. This book is a manifesto about getting out of your own way to have the life you really want. This means figuring out what you want out of life and taking steps to get it. Though, at first read, it can feel like the slacker’s guide to becoming a millionaire, there is more to it. It’s about challenging societal norms and realizing just because it’s been done “the same way for years” doesn’t mean it’s the right way. For some reason, as human beings, we tend to make life harder on ourselves even when we want to make things better.

One of the exercises Tim prescribes in this book is called Fear Setting, which he got from the stoic philosopher Seneca the Younger. (I will talk more about Stoicism in another post because I find it extremely fascinating but this is all you’ll get here). Basically, this exercise has you visualizing on your worst case scenarios to find out if what’s holding you back is really as bad as it seems. If you lost your job tomorrow would it be the end of the world or would you recover? How about breaking up with your girl/boyfriend or getting a divorce or becoming paralyzed? Will your world end if these things happened to you or could you recover?

What this does is takes all of those scary thoughts you have bouncing around in your head and puts them out into the open. Out into the light of day. When you take the time to word vomit your problems, fears, and worst case scenarios onto “paper” you find they aren’t as scary as you thought they were. You find the worst case scenarios aren’t so worst case, there are things you can do to prevent your scenarios from happening, and finally you can plan on ways to recover from your personal apocalypse. It becomes less doom and gloom and becomes temporary pain and suffering. You’ve planned for this and now you know how to fix it. (To read the full chapter about fear setting from the 4 Hour Work Week click here. The exercise is at the end).

After you’ve put down on paper your worst case scenarios in vivid detail you can practice them. Once or twice a month, a quarter, or a year you try to approximate living in these scenarios to inoculate yourself when the real shit hits the fan. Afraid of losing your job and not having any money? Spend a week only eating rice and beans or sleeping your car and showering at work. Afraid of losing a hand or arm? Go a day or two with your off hand tied to your side. Afraid of getting a divorce and being all by yourself? Take a solo trip out of town for a few days to see how it feels.

The fears and practice scenarios are up to you and can be as creative as you want them. The important part is finding ways to take the fear setting one step further by applying a practical application to them. Now not only do you think you can live through these scenarios but you know because you’ve done it. Every time you feel the fear start to creep back in you give yourself another “injection.”

That’s what I’ve done here. I worried about what people would think about my writing for so long I knew I needed to take action. When I started the blog I felt good but it wasn’t enough since I was still afraid to have the world read it. Then I shared I started a blog, on Facebook. I learned it wasn’t as bad as I imagined and was something I needed to continue. Even if the feedback was mostly negative, it was still worth doing because I could easily recover by moving forward anyway or finding a new project.

My point here is many times thing feel horrible, debilitating, or even the end of the world but can be recovered from. Sometimes pessimism is practical. So what are you waiting for? It might just change or save your life!

The 3 Reasons I Write

When I originally decided I wanted to start a blog, some months ago, the idea was to be a repository of “wisdoms” I wanted to share with my kiddos. Things I learn throughout the years and wanted to let them know. This was to prevent me from shot-gunning advice to them all over the place. I have a tendency to be inconsistent at times and it can feel like I’ve put zero thought into what I’m saying or why I’m saying it. I worry they feel I rant because I’m a crazy person. The problem is I don’t always do a good job articulating why I say or do things which, I’m sure, feel unfair.

Instead of writing for the kiddos, I decided to write for me. I’m writing things down I want to remember. I also hope there’s the secondary benefit of helping you, and, eventually, my kids.

Those who know me know I’m a very anxious person. I worry about my life, my future, my wife, my kids, family, and my friends. I worry about how people think of my now and how they’ll think of me in the future. I fear being irrelevant and going my whole life with little to nothing to show for it. It’s something I’ve been dealing with all my life, often extremely poorly. I’ve let it become debilitating and hinder much of my personal growth over the last 36 years.

I’ve spent most of my life thinking about the future and what it held for me. Being a science fiction fanatic, I’ve always looked towards the future in anticipation and fear. I remember when I was 18, my parents asked me to write down where I thought I would be at the age of 25 and 35. Back then, I thought I was going to be a GLORIOUS day trader who had a million dollars in the bank by the age of 35. Well, I’m 36 now and I’m lucky if I have 2% of that million in the bank at this moment. Most days I just feel like a complete and utter failure. My saving grace is I’m not giving up and I’m continuing to fight, especially for my kids.

Over the last year, I embarked on a period of rediscovery. While most of it has been a colossal failure, I found writing, starting with the desire to journal. Many successful people say they journal every day, and wanting to be successful, I thought I’d try it. It was never a regular practice but I found I would write during periods of deep anxiety. Writing what’s on my mind seems to take the pressure off and it relaxes me. I found it cathartic.

When I was a kid, I thought writing was girly and dumb. Girls had dairies to write down their feels and hide them under their pillows. Boys didn’t need to write their feelings down, they just needed to swallow hard, and “Man Up.” Clearly, this line of thinking has been SUPER helpful for all these years (this is sarcasm). So now I write.

Since I’ve started writing I’ve learned three important things:

Learning how to write effectively helps you to become a better communicator in your own right. You don’t have to be a “writer,” whether it’s a blogger, journalist, author, etc., but just need to a dude/dudette with a journal. Either way, you will need to communicate with others on a regular basis. The more you practice writing, the better you will be at getting your point across by organize your thoughts into a logically cohesive way. No matter who you are or what you do, being an effective communicator helps in all aspects of your life.
Coming back to the catharsis of writing, I believe it helps with something called fear setting. Tim Ferriss has talked at length about fear setting and writing down your fears to make them more manageable. (I’ll talk more about this in another post). While I think his fear setting exercise is excellent, sometimes you just need to write down what you are thinking to get it out of your head. Your head is a nebulous place where fear, doubt, and anxiety enjoy living and need the darkness to grow. Writing shines a light on fear so it can no longer sustain itself. Taking away fear’s power will help make you a better, more balanced, less angry person.
Writing helps create better ideas by developing your analytical side. If you’re anything like me ideas get into your head like a brain bug and infect you. They swirl around all day making it difficult to focus on anything. Maybe it’s a problem you are trying to solve or an idea for the next lifesaving widget. Much the fear setting, this exercise provides a safe place to problem solve and figure out next steps by looking back, ordering, and reordering thoughts until they make sense.

Can you do these things without a regular writing practice? Sure, you can. Is this the best way to work on these skills? Maybe not. What I do know is writing is the first thing I’ve found to work, and Lord knows I’ve been trying. Now I’m here writing every day to become a better communicator, build a defense against my anxiety, and become a better problem solver.

So, I encourage you to join me by starting to write now, today, and often.