My Personal Syllabus

Or Better Yet “Who I Want to Be!”

About a year and a half ago, I made the decision to give up social media.  I found it to be a time drain, a rabbit hole here and a rabbit hole there.  All the arguing, dissention, bickering, it was absurd.  It just didn’t seem worth it.  I would come home from work and get online, then before I knew it, it was time to go to bed. 

Ten plus years ago, I gave up television for the same reason.  I haven’t owned a TV or cable since.  That’s not to say I don’t watch television, or movies.  I have Amazon Prime, Netflix, and my cell phone provider gives me HBO Max.  But I limit the time that I spend on them and don’t watch the news four hours a day.  It used to be that I’d watch the news anywhere from three to five hours a day.  And I can’t tell you the last time I watched Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, or a rerun of Law and Order.  That was easily another two to three hours a day.  Factor in chores, hygiene, and commute time to work and that was all my free time. 

I abandoned social media with the intent of dedicating more time to my creativity and photography.  But that’s not how it played out.  I would only shoot occasionally and then not process my work.  In addition to letting my editing skills atrophy, Photoshop and Lightroom evolved, and I fell behind on those advances. 

With all that said, it seems that it’s in my nature to find things that will just promote passivity and doing nothing useful, fruitless activities that aren’t productive.  Since I gave up social media, I’ve let my photography go by the wayside, let my website expire, I stopped writing, and found myself procrastinating on just about everything. 

I would go out for dinner with my friends, and they would talk about the images they posted on Facebook and the feedback they shared.  I was out of the loop and falling behind. 

For this reason, about two months ago I went back to social media.  But with the caveat that I would not allow myself to spend hours a day there.  And that has worked out so far.  I’ve also retaken my initial photoshop class and a Lightroom class, neither of which include the most recent additions to the software.  Then in my internet travels I came across this idea of creating a “Personal Syllabus”.  This spurred all kinds of ideas upon me.  I’ve created a self-education syllabus to help structure my evenings, and a list of qualities and standards that I want to live up to.  That will be another post.

I’ve made the decision that I need to get into a routine that will allow me to have the life that I want to live.  A life that includes photography, creativity, practicing a lifelong education.  Taking classes online, reading and expanding my mind.  Things that will make me feel like I accomplished something at the end of the day. I need to get my body, soul, and spirit in harmony with each other.  I need to be someone who feels that he has a purpose. Something other than just earning a paycheck to just pay the bills.

While I know it’s the end of the year and 2024 is upon us and I’ve never been one to make New Years resolutions.  In fact, I’ve never made one that I’ve kept.  So, I don’t want to call this a new year thing, resolution or otherwise.  It just starts now.  It’s a decision, that’s all it is.  Below is the plan for the next year.  A year of reading, studying, writing, creating, changing, living the life that I envision for myself. 

My next post will be very simple, the traditional, detailed, lengthy, syllabus that will layout the learning plan for the next year. 

Thanks, People like you are super rare and very difficult to find.