I will spend 20 minutes to half an hour each day working on my creative writing. I find that when I free write, I am able to better access what I am feeling subconsciously. This helps me to express myself, and I’m usually surprised at the quality of work I usually end up with. It’s been a goal of mine to have something I’ve written published. I have already started doing this activity sporadically, but starting tomorrow I will set aside time every day after dinner to practice writing.

The problem that I am going to brainstorm is dealing with my car and the winter conditions. Up until this point in my life, I have always had the luxury of having a garage. This meant protection from ice. It never got cold enough for me to worry about any part of my car freezing, or needing to run my car for five to ten minutes before using it. I would to provide protection for my car against the winter elements. As far as solving my problem, until now I have been stuck on the thought that I need some sort of winter weather cover for my car.

Branching out and brainstorming, maybe there is a local garage near my house that I can rent space to park for the winter. After a bit of research, maybe I can make my own car cover for the winter. Perhaps I can find a better deal on car covers from eBay or other websites. Maybe I can run a power cable out the car and have a heating blanket running. My only experience with winter weather so far is from Chicago and Germany, both of which are much more severe than Virginia. Maybe I should ‘rough it’ through this winter and make a better educated decision for next year.

I think that what I am going to do is a combination of the looking at discount websites, and waiting to make a more informed decision for next winter. Sometimes no action is the best action, and making an informed decision is always better than one that is made uninformed.

Relationships

The exercises on relationships were a little difficult for me; I don’t like to admit that a relationship I have is in need of work, and the fact that the exercises called me to label someone a “problem person” made it hard to do. Yet, after I got past this, I had an eye-opening heart to heart with my fiancée. I have been wanting more power, recognition, and freedom. I told my fiancée what I really wanted during the take aim exercises on page 180.

We had a long discussion that started with Halloween. This upcoming Halloween will be the first one that I have been in the United States for in the past 4 years. This is also the first Halloween that I will have trick-or-treaters on my own doorstep. I want to relax, decorate the house a little, and see the costumes. I asked what Myrna wanted to do for Halloween, and she wanted to see the trick-or-treeters, and also go to a Halloween Party and meet some new people. We realized that although we wanted different things, we can do both.

I had to explain the exercise to Myrna, and hand her the IPOH book, turned to the list of needs (page 8). It was interesting to hear her go through the needs and examples, and talk about what she feels is going on in our relationship. I was surprised to hear some of what she said, and I made a few realizations about why we had a few of our previous arguments.

IPOH Chapter 5

This chapter was rough for me. I think that fact is made obvious by my putting off writing this blog to the last conceivable minute. I think the problem is that at my current state, I don’t have a lot of contact with people on a close personal level. Having just moved, and not yet being employed, my friends and people that I talk to are limited to my Fiancée. My mother and brother are close, so it’s not like I’m a hermit, but I’m not exactly in a position where the idea of letting go of relationships is comfortable.

This brings me to my action indexes. I would say that as far as people are concerned, I need to work harder to maintain the worthwhile friendships and regain contact with some of the friends I’ve lost contact with. As far as activities, I know that I can kick gaming to the curb. I’ve already started this by working on better time management, and I’ve found that the less time I spend on computer games the less I want to. I could spend more time being involved in a group and meeting new people by not gaming.

In order to increase the amount of power and freedom I have in my life I am going to begin writing creatively again. I used to love to write, but lack of an audience slowly turned me away from this. I’m going to start by following through on my long-time desire of writing a theatre script.

Balancing

As I started to read chapter 4, I was fairly complacent. The chapter’s subject was on balance, and I considered myself decent at juggling several things. It didn’t take too long for the E. Perry Good to wake me from my misconception, and give me reason to sit down and think about what was being said.

After my first misconception of the chapter I developed a fairly negative view on how this exercise was going to turn out. I expected that I would discover that I am completely out of balance. Luckily my results on the exercise didn’t turn out as bad as I had expected.

I analyzed 5 people and 4 activities. The relationships category was filled by my fiancée, brother, mother, father, and friends. I only have a few close friends, and they all fit best within the same group. My activities were: school work, house work, exercise, and gaming.

The quadrants of my circle turned out as follows:

Love:
Fiancée
Brother
Mother
Father
Friends
Exercise
Gaming

Power:
Fiancée
Mother
Father
Friends
Schoolwork
Housework
Exercise

Fun:
Fiancée
Brother
Mother
Friends
Schoolwork
Exercise
Gaming

Freedom:
Brother-
Mother-
Friends-
Exercise-

The only quadrant that is not on par with the others is Freedom. I didn’t realize that some people, such as my mother, met as many needs as they did. This exercise also helped me to identify ways I might be not meeting other people’s needs. For instance, I need to think of ways to work on my relationship with my fiancée so that we can meet each other’s need for freedom.

In order to continue the freedom I feel from exercise, I will begin to plan it into my schedule.
In order to continue the all around good relationship I have with my mother, I will make sure to talk to her at least once a week.
In order to continue having fun with my fiancée, we will go exploring our new home city twice a week.