I’m starting a rather rushed project this week, and as such will not be posting very regularly at all. There are a few things on my mind, though…discuss amongst yourselves! :-)

• Values — On this recent post, a neat comment by Lauren Muney about living one’s life in “alignment with values” really struck a chord. “My Values” are something I hadn’t been thinking of…I’ve been on autopilot. Thanks Lauren! I’ve been thinking about what they are, and how I can live in alignment with them.

• Principles — I have been rediscovering these after emailing a friend about a Libertarian candidate for Congress in Connecticutt. I read up on Libertarian views, and was reminded of some of my own deeply-held beliefs about what was important to me. I am thinking that principles and values are similar, but not quite the same.

• Looking Forward — Reader Mark commented how he uses a carrot on a stick approach to get him to focus on getting things done. Reflecting on this, I realized that I don’t really have a whole lot that I look forward to, which took me completely by surprise. Perhaps this is why I’m so interested in motivation and finding a sense of purpose. I’m interested in lots of things, but they’ve all been missing something. Reader James commented that considering who one did tasks for is another way to look at it. Having people involved somewhere in the task mix seems to be the common motivator.

• Secrets — Despite what I just wrote about looking forward to things, I had an insight recently: the world is a pretty neat place, and I’m ecstatic to be in it. The world and I have a secret deal with each other, that’s what it feels like.

• Tasks — I went to sleep very late on Friday night and couldn’t sleep. As a result, my Saturday was pretty much blown, unable to focus and fuzzy headed. I also was feeling very unmotivated; my mind was saying “get up and work on something!” but my body was saying “sleeep”. An insight occured to me as I was crumpled on the couch: when faced with a task, my mental stance is either running-towards or running away. When I’m running away, I find something else to do in its place as an escape. When I can’t run away any more, I fall asleep. I am not sure what triggers this, but framing the behavior in this way gives me a new anti-procrastination visualization tool: face the task and run towards it. This works for me because I don’t like the idea of NOT facing something; I hadn’t realized I was doing this until today. If it’s a task that doesn’t have to be faced, then I shouldn’t bother doing it at all.

• High School — My 20th year high school reunion is coming up, and I haven’t decided if I’ll go. It’ll be in San Francisco this October, since my high school is in Taiwan and the old campus technically doesn’t exist anymore. I enjoy watching movies and TV shows about High School, and seem to be on a High School comics reading kick, like the print Blue Monday (my sis, again, introduces me to this) and the Penny & Aggie (not quite as fun, but nicely drawn). I’m not sure WHY I find this stuff so fascinating. I suspect it’s partly because High School was different in Taiwan (being an international school in a non-English speaking city) than it was here in the US; when I moved back for college, I found that there were huge gaps in my cultural background that made it difficult for me to relate to people. I’m still filling them in. Today I had another thought: High School is one of those places where you don’t choose your community, and because of that the social environment shapes you. After High School, you’re pretty free to shape yourself by choosing a college and a major, then a job and a workplace. You have the ability to shape yourself by selecting your community, and there really are no restrictions on you, other than what you choose to put up with. You always have the choice. Right now, I’m living the choice to work independently, but I am starting to think I’ve gone too far in this direction. I need to reconnect with some kind of community and learn to navigate a new set of social conventions. Yup, it’s a weird thought.

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p>Incidentally, some of you may have noticed the site went down on Friday. That’s because I forgot to renew my domain name registration. It’s funny how the domain name system takes a couple hours to take down the site, but 48 hours to come back up.