Forever Grateful

As I contemplate contextual purpose, I am considering blogging as a good fit for such an evolving purpose tailored to my current life. Blogging is transitioning me to a professional writing career one blog at a time while acting as a conduit for one of my core values: writing. Writing is both a personal and eventually a professional value because: It facilitates knowledge and experience documentation (through journaling), giving me an opportunity to possess more than intelligence of one moment (The Discipline of Finishing: Conor Neill at TEDxUniversidaddeNavarra, You Tube Video, starting at 14:12 mark) It promotes creativity and self-expression through language. It pushes me to aspire for clarity and precision in communication. Blogging, as a subset of writing, lays the value‑laden foundation for my contextual purpose of reaching out to and engaging with my human community. I believe it lets me create a virtuous circle in which the purpose cre...

In "Be Your Future Self," I find an interesting mental model: contextual purpose. This is important to the author, Dr. Benjamin Hardy. He cites Dr. Viktor Frankl as a shining model for this approach of crafting purpose.   According to Dr. Benjamin Hardy, when Dr. Viktor Frankl helped his fellow prisoners define a purpose, he wasn't helping them define an overarching life purpose. He was helping them define a purpose that saw them through their life in a concentration camp. In other words, the purpose is contextual. Once they go out of that prison camp, they can define another purpose that takes them through their new life.   To reiterate, this mental model champions purpose that fits a context. Of course, I need a contextual purpose. For example, I need to methodically craft a writing career. To that end, I must start shipping out my products immediately.   Blogging provides an immediate avenue along this long journey towards mastering the craft.     Of co...

 I discovered a powerful overarching quest: to craft a sustainable purpose that fuels a meaningful life.  This discovery with an angst co out of the disconnect between the life I would be proud of living and my current existence.  I consciously created the contrast between “life” and “existence” as I constructed the previous sentence. While disempowering, the word “existence” captures the truth about the way I am surviving from day to day.   Not every moment in my life is devoid of striving for “The Good Life”.   However, when I tally every moment of my presence on earth, the balance heavily tilts towards that existence devoid of a powerful, animating, and sustainable purpose. To cultivate that sustainable purpose, I need to embrace something that generates a belief that what I am working towards has significance and provides value beyond mere personal gain. Although I realize this sustainable purpose demands deep thinking, I know that it is futile to enme...

I have set myself a new goal: to walk at least 7000 steps each day.  I have also decided to give a name to these series of efforts - gratitude walks.  I think the name is fitting. In August of 2024, I had a below the knee amputation on my right leg.  That took my life on a radically different pathway.  For example, it took me a time and multiple physical therapy sessions to gain mobility using a wheelchair.  The most important part of this life journey, however, occurred on December 13,2024.  On that date, I got my first prosthetic leg and began walking.  I am deeply grateful for that event; I am where I am now because of that momentous day. Fast forwarding to Sunday November 23, 2025, I committed to walking 7000 steps a day.  I have been putting the counts diligently since then except for yesterday; I was about eight hundred steps short.  I am not discouraged, nevertheless. When I go on these walks, I have my smartphone with me and I often u...

Authentic Happiness,  Martin Seligman's intriguing book on positive psychology, is full of hidden gems.  A good example is his portrayal of the valiant efforts to lay solid foundations for this youthful branch of psychology, Inspired by the precedent set by the DSM III, Seligman helped spearhead the efforts  to "sponsor the creation of a classification of the sanities as the backbone of Positive Psychology".  This entailed tapping from the rich wells of religious and philosophical writings that included The Bible, Talmud, Koran, Plato, Aristotle, and the Upanishads. This wealth of thinking traditions that traversed three thousand years was used to create a universal taxonomy of six core virtues: -         Wisdom and knowledge -         Courage -         Love and humanity -         Justice -     ...

 I have stopped celebrating my birthday long time ago.  I am not saddened by that; it is the way it is. For some reason, this morning, I decided to blow out imaginary candles and make a wish as I did so. The only thing that came to mind was continuing to ship my writing out regularly .   It has been five days since my last blog .  Everyday life seems to get in my way regularly and let the days march by without shipping out anything. As I blew those imaginary candles ( two candles: one in the shape of 5 the next in the shape of 4 ) I made that wish to be able to do whatever it takes to post a blog regularly .