Until now, aside from a few attempts at travel blogging and some Instagram captions here and there, I don’t think I’ve shared too much of my life and my thoughts with the world. Why? I guess because every time I’m about to, I immediately think “who freaking cares?” (Except for you mom and dad, I know you care.)
This first entry in what I’ll call my ‘notebook’ is essentially an internal argument that I’ve been having over the last few days, trying to convince myself that by sharing more with the world, I may be able to create value – for both myself and for others.
In the earlier stages of my argument, I wrestled over whether or not I had something of value that I can offer the world. Then, ultimately fell into a pretty hopeless place of debating internally over whether or not I have any value at all. So, yah, that wasn’t good.
Basically, I set out to write a post explaining why I’m creating a virtual notebook where I can share my thoughts and views on various topics, and I ended up following down a pretty detrimental line of questioning. The questions themselves weren’t negative, but I found myself asking them almost accusingly. What do I have to offer the world? What is my value, to myself and to others? And what is value anyway?
What is Value?
To come back to a more neutral ground, and to try to bring logic into the equation, I figured the last question was a good place to start, so I looked up the definition of ‘value’. Webster’s dictionary, as we love to say, uses the word ‘relative’ to define value. Relative. Relative to what? Maybe, relative to others… Or, relative to ourselves.
“Is the answer, then, that I just need to prove to myself that I have value? Is that why I’m doing this?” That’s what I asked myself yesterday. Today, I’m ready to admit that I do value myself. Not always, but a lot of the time I do.
I value myself when I open my old journals, from 6 or 7 years ago, and find snippets of thoughts that reignite some forgotten emotion or passion. I value myself when I do things that bring me joy, like drawing or yoga. I value myself when I’m able to overcome anything that might be blocking me in my journey.
A lot of what I value, it seems, has to do with effort; that’s the conclusion I’ve come to anyway. The effort to learn or create something new, the effort to forge new connections with people and maintain relationships, the effort to answer a question. I guess in the end that’s why I’m doing this. I’m trying to put in some effort.
I’d like to think that by putting myself out there, by striving to learn and open my mind and heart to new experiences, I can increase my self-worth. Hopefully, in doing so I may be able to share my value with others as well.
This has all been a long way of explaining or, more accurately, justifying what I want to do here which is just to write about things like:
- What I do and why (on a daily basis, and also just in general)
- Projects I’m working on (including the process and stuff)
- Interesting books or articles that inspire me or offer a new perspective
- My goals and what I feel helps propel me towards them, or what might be stopping me from reaching them
- Philosophical queries that I’m trying to work out, like “what’s status?” and more
As you may have noticed, I don’t have all the answers; and, I won’t pretend that I do. I’m still trying to figure out who I am and what I believe. Hopefully this platform will give me the opportunity to wrestle with these inner conflicts, and maybe along the way we can learn something together. Let’s just see how it goes, huh?