Developing Myself

If you’re reading this, you’re probably curious about what this blog is.

You may be thinking “’developing’? must be yet another personal development blog.” In a sense, you’re right… but you’re also wrong.

“Personal development”, typically, means that someone gives advice to readers on how to improve their lives, sharing his or her wisdom (no joke here — “wisdom” is not only for people with long white beards), telling stories about how they overcame one problem or another, and so on. The specifics may be different, but usually there’s one thing in common: the writer knows what he or she is talking about.

Much like you wouldn’t buy a “miracle diet” from a really overweight salesperson, you’d suspect someone giving advice about personal development when he’s as bad or worse off than you… right?

My point with this blog is to say “no” to that question. While I’m no poor sad “victim of society”, many important parts of my life are in pretty bad shape – see the very first posts on this blog for details –, and improving them won’t be easy. And I don’t claim any special knowledge; yes, I’ve read a few books, and thought a lot about how to improve things, but the fact that my life is currently (March 2009) as lousy as it is constitutes proof that I really don’t know more about this subject than the average person. No more than you, most likely.

And yet I intend to change things for the better. And document it, right here on this blog.

I’m no guru, or “wise old man”, or anything. Currently, I don’t have anything to “teach” you. But I intend to learn, and share what I learn; to try things out, and share the results. By sharing, I hope to accomplish two goals: to shame myself into not quitting in my attempts, when the going gets tough, and, who knows, to help out others in similar situations.

Experiences and knowledge can be shared, and there’s no need to reinvent the wheel for each person. However, there are times where you don’t need to learn from “the master”, you just need to know that someone was just in almost the same situation as yourself, tried this, and that happened.

I won’t lie to you: this blog is mostly for me to help myself, to improve my life, to “develop my person”, so to speak. In a way, that is a pretty selfish goal. But I have hope that this may end up helping others as well. That by helping myself I am helping others… and by helping others I am helping myself.

Time will tell.

Oh, and one more thing. Everything I write here, every story I tell, is the absolute truth. I won’t give any really intimate details about me and my life, of course, nor will I mention anyone else (family, friends, etc.) by name, but, except for those caveats, I intend to be completely and brutally honest. Including when something is embarassing. Even friends and family, if they ever read this, will probably learn things about me that they didn’t know. So be it… this blog wouldn’t work if I didn’t write honestly and clearly about what I’m doing, so that is what will have to happen.