Day Six: Action

Almost a full week has gone by since I've embarked on this month of discipline, which I hope will strengthen my self-control as well as begin a habit of structured self-reflection and improvement. My role model in this quest is Ben Franklin, who was able to accomplish a great number of impressive things during his life, perhaps due in part to his dedication to self-improvement. My lofty ambition is that this path which I am now beginning may lead me to accomplish great things as well.

During the first three days, I looked at the first three of Benjamin Franklin's areas of self-improvement. Each month he would focus on one of these thirteen areas, documenting his shortcomings and attempting to fix them. The first three are Temperance, Silence, and Order. I quickly found that Order is one of my shortcomings, as I do not often impose it on my life. But, each day I have tried to make a small effort to tidy up some aspect of my life.

Another interesting shortcoming I have discovered, is that other people seeing me fail scares me inordinately. Let me put this into context: At a bar I realized that I wanted to go talk to some nice-looking ladies, but did not, out of fear of public failure. And so, I missed out on an opportunity to meet new peoople and challenge my social muscles. Life is too short to let an unreasonable fear inhibit me.

In other aspects of my live I relish failure; in order to master a new skill, failure is unavoidable. Every world-class musician was terrible when they first started, every professional athelete has botched a play. I say that I relish  failure in other cases, because the more I fail, the more I will learn, and the quicker I will escape from novicehood. This is logical, and I believe is the right attitude when it comes to new skills; it is not that I want to fail, but that failure is necessary and unavoidable. Fear of initial failure should not preclude me from continuing to try; without trying, I could never progress to the point where I will not fail so often.

This is what has made me a good musician, a good student, and a good writer (hopefully). But music I can practice alone, as I can also do with schoolwork and writing. I like to see myself as someone who doesn't fail in public, and this self-conception prevents me sometimes from taking risks in public with respect to new skills (i.e. talking to pretty strangers). However, if I never try, I can never improve. So, I must engage my self-control to force myself to fail in public so that I can get better. Life is too short to live with irrational fears that may keep me from beautiful experiences. Tomorrow I will force myself to engage a lady I don't know in conversation.