Meltropolis

Getting Started

They do say that the first step is always the hardest, don’t they? And they say that the first step has to be the decision?

I’m sorry to say it but that’s pretty much the truth.

If you want to change yourself, or do anything at all really, you can read all the books and articles you want but nothing will happen if you never start. It probably seems way too hard at first, or it might be you think you may want to change but you’re not sure yet. That’s what happened to me, anyway.
Somewhere in my logical mind I knew that if I wanted to get anything done I would have to turn my life around, almost completely. I’d have to start paying attention in class, actually work on moving out of my parents’ house instead of just thinking about it, I’d have to spend time actually doing useful things instead of just gaming.
I can tell you I was actually physically revolted at the thought of giving this up!
I am not entirely sure when or how I made the decision, but I know it was actually before I started reading up on the subject. In one week I went to several job interviews, cleaned out my room, signed up for what passes for a housing project around here, and it was a fair start. (I still do a good amount of gaming, though, I just have other activities mixed in.)

I think that to really make this decision to change, you need to realise that you have a problem. I only realised after writing that, that it’s the AA motto. I suppose they’re right, then.

Can you picture your ideal self in the future?
Where would you like to be in a year? What kind of person are you then, what are you doing, what have you achieved? How much money are you making? Are you happy?
How about in five years? Ten? What do you want for yourself?
There is no way in the world that you don’t deserve every last bit of that. And there is no way that it’s somehow not possible for you to have it.

Now take a look at your present life. Your job, your relationships, your habits… your life. Can you picture what your life will look like a year from now if you continue this way? How about in five years? What does it look like?
Does it match with the future you imagined before?
If it does, you either have low expectations or you’re on the right track.
If it doesn’t, what’s stopping you from starting to work on that ideal future?
I’ll give you a hint: you are. Not your boss, not society, not your shitty luck. If you want your situation to change, all you have to do is change it. More on that in later articles, though.

-Mel

Posted in Goals, Growth | No Comments »

Introductions

Hello out there in the intertubes! If you’re reading this please drop me a line in the form of a comment or a mail and let me know how you got here.

I had some posts queued up for this blog, but I didn’t back them up properly and my computer chose this exact time to need formatting, so they’re gone. Bear with me while I fix it, there will be actual content up soon.

The purpose

The purpose of this blog somewhat complicated, let me first explain how I got the idea.
I’ve been toying with the idea of a website for ages, but its actual content has always been a big gray blur in my mind. I’ve thought about selling my (very mediocre) drawings online, I’ve thought about starting a webcomic. However, I can’t honestly say I would force my worst enemy to look at something I drew for an extended amount of time, and I’ve done the webcomic thing before and I know I don’t have the discipline to keep one going, especially not alone.

So why a blog? Simplest reason is that I enjoy writing and I want to do more of it, even if I can’t find inspiration. My previous battle with National Novel Writing Month has shown me that a large part of “inspiration” is just the act of writing every day, no matter how blocked you happen to be. According to the founder of this Novel Writing initiative, this helps you “summon” inspiration when you need it, and I’ve found that it does. I wrote an entire 50,000+ word novel without stopping. Sure, I got blocked but I didn’t let that slow me down (while in the past it took me months to get over writer’s block.) Too bad that after November I was so happy to finally stop working on the damn novel that I allowed myself to slack off. Now I’m back in my old rythm. So the idea of a blog came primarily from a desire to write consistently, write more, and write better.

Let me relieve your worries: I won’t be talking about what I had for breakfast, the day I had at work or the latest noob to bother me online. Gaming and computer-related issues may come into the equation at some point, because they are a large part of my life and the way I think, but that’s about the extent of that. Maybe later when traffic is up I might do a few articles on news items that I have an opinion about, or random ideas that I’ve had, but not for a while at least.

The content

The main content of this blog will be personal development, self-help if you will. I don’t claim to know what I’m doing, I don’t have any related PhDs, but personal development is after all personal. If you find something here that sounds like a good idea, go do it. Otherwise you are free to ignore my babbling. I don’t promise INSANT RESULTS just from reading a website, however. It takes work. I will freely admit that I am still working on it myself, I only barely got started. Not like this process ever ends, of course.

The reason I chose this topic is that I really enjoy helping people. This seems to be one of the best ways to reach a lot of interested individuals without having to go overboard with money or time. Before this I’ve only ever helped people that I just happened to come across - friends, online folk, passersby etc. A blog seems like the best way to take a more active stance towards this goal.

I’ve been thinking lately, and I do know now that in order to help other people I also have to help myself grow. As long as there are such huge gaping holes in my life, how can I in good conscience tell someone what they should do with theirs? For years I haven’t seen this truth, and have kept pushing myself further into the background while focusing on everybody else, and it made me miserable. Sure, helping others gave me a temporary boost of spirits, but it went away. With my logic at the time, this meant I simply wasn’t doing enough. I would lie awake at night, tossing and turning and stressing out over other people’s (often trivial) problems. With my logic at the time, the fact that I was unhappy meant I didn’t deserve happiness. In time somebody would see what I was doing and give me a pat on the back or something, right? I couldn’t remember the last time I received a compliment or a simple thank you that I thought the other person really meant, and without counting the “here’s your CD back,” “oh, thank you,” kind of thank you.
Well, to be honest I still can’t, but I’ve stopped waiting for it. My self-esteem is one of the areas that still needs work; I have a hard time believing anything good someone says about me.
I’ve been working on myself and my own growth, and now I feel that I know enough in at least some areas, and that I can ’speak’ with some authority on my view of the subject.

I just hope others want to listen.

So anyway, enjoy the blog!
I’ll be working on recreating the content and it should be going soon!

- Mel

Posted in Growth, Personal, Writing | 6 Comments »