Dear Journal

Many people suffer from feeling alone. Thousands of people walking the streets and hundreds walking the office, and still we often feel so alone. It seems that the very things that make us feel alone are the same things that would undoubtedly give us the support and communication that is so vital. They are those horrible situations that have happened to us, those unthinkable grievances that we all suppress into the darkest recesses of our memory—deep enough not to affect the way others see us, but still present enough to create the cold feeling of being terribly and utterly alone. It seems that we have furnished our comfortable lives with so many masks of control, stability, and independence that we have become professional life-realtors: we can show our lives to each other, convincing one another of the perfect emotional or financial status that we pretend to all enjoy. If we were to swallow our desire to control the uncontrollable and stabilize that which is already unstable and just open up to one another, throwing out our pathological phobia of being vulnerable, we would see that we have more in common with each other than we may understand. Every situation is different, but the feelings that we feel are often shared.

The first step that is needed cannot realistically be finding someone and telling him or her of your deepest, darkest secrets—maybe in a perfect, idealistic world you could. What is needed is to tell yourself what you feel. Is it possible that one of the main reasons that we feel alone is that we don’t understand why we feel the way we feel—feeling lost in the crowd, alone in this isolation. Self-awareness is important for self-development. The best way to mature and grow is to find, realize, and admit where maturity and growth is needed. This may seem so obvious and over-generalized, and admittedly, it is. But that does not make it any less true.

There must be a way to fight the greatest enemy posing a threat to our emotional security: ourselves. Journaling is certainly one way. Journaling is perhaps the most effective and direct way to get a deeper understanding of yourself and the world around you. By putting your thoughts in writing, you trigger some unique mental processes that often lead to invaluable new insights. Even still, directing your words onto paper is not easy for many people; the difference between the idea that is in your mind and words that come out attempting to describe it sometimes just don’t match up… and it gets frustrating. But the truest aspect about journaling is that it the best place for introspection and growth that is available.

However, do not let your words become a stage to try and find pity, affirmation, or attention. Only when you write with the knowledge that no one will ever read the words that you are writing—when there is truly no other audience but yourself—only then will your words come out in the honesty that is necessary to understand the feelings that create the heavy burden that weighs on all of our minds, individually.

Polymaths such as, Leonardo da Vinci and Thomas Edison, were firm believers in using notebooks and journals as tools to record their ideas and feelings, much like modern creatives use pda's, netbooks, blackberries, etc. Try to write several statements a day that start with "I wonder,why, how, etc...”

If you're pressed for time you might consider mind mapping. Mind Mapping, is a great way to save space and time when you journal.

A mind map is a design used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged around a central key word or idea. Mind maps are used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas, as an aid in study, organization, problem solving, decision making, and writing.

The elements of a given mind map are arranged intuitively according to the importance of the concepts, and are classified into groupings, branches, or areas, with the goal of representing semantic or other connections between portions of information. Mind maps may also aid recall of existing memories.

If you choose to mind map remember that "everything connects" (e.g. Imagine a flower. Draw a picture of the sun). Making connections between things that are dissimilar is an asset when it comes to creative thinking. Practice thinking about how different things relate to each other, and how different things can be combined to make something completely different.

Basic Rules for Mind Mapping:

1. Sheet sideways.

2. Pen or computer

3. Select topic, problem or subject and purpose.

4. Start in the center of the page.

5. Use color to trigger memory. Each separate main branch
has a different color and each sub-branches for that main
branch stays with that branch's color.

6. Branches closest to the center are thicker.

7. Each idea starts a new branch.

8. Use images to express ideas whenever possible.

9. The image or word needs to sit on the line and in print.

10. The line needs to be the same length as the image or
word.

These are your memoirs and are only a few methods on how to keep a journal. Not all journals will change history, but they will enhance your creativity, reduce stress, help focus, etc. if used properly.

Wondering how to achieve a small measure of immortality? Keep a journal.

Adam T. Wamack (A Young Influence)
Ruben Harris

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Clearly, You Must Not Know Our Women

Equality, in all its forms, has been a topic of intense debate. Yet, even though fantastic steps have been made in the right direction, we live in a world that still espouses inequality. Gender equality—women’s rights, empowerment of women—has been one of the areas that has made some of the greatest leaps towards this goal of equal rights, treatment, and opportunity; however, deep-rooted cultural beliefs sustain gender inequality. Yet women are still much more powerful than they let themselves be. What is needed is a continuation of what has been started. Simply because great strides have been made in the right direction does not mean that it has ceased to be a direction still worth heading towards, a goal still worth achieving, a necessity still worth fighting for.

Even if men were, in our future, to be the only leaders, the fact of the matter is that nearly every man was raised by a woman. Again, hypothetically, even if women never become the leaders in our world, they historically have a responsibility to our world—the responsibility to raise those leaders of our future into the type of men they want to lead. The future of our world belongs to the youth—man and woman—and it is up to them to lead our countries, feed the world, and to fight for peace when we are gone. Who is it that will teach them to be moral or immoral, just or unjust, steadfast or corruptible? It is they who raised them: most of the time, a woman.

“As the bearers of the lives that foster the growth of society, it is therefore evident that society itself is dependent upon those same women.” –T. Hoffman

In the past it has been the right to vote, the right to equal treatment before employers, the right to never have these rights denied them because of their gender. In 1920 the XIX Amendment was ratified becoming part of our Constitution affirming that “the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex;” and in 1972 the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment) was passed by Congress affirming “equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State on the basis of sex” (**see note at end of article). The women’s movement, spearheaded by organizations such as NOW (National Organization for Women), has certainly been one marked by success—and rightly so.

However, what is to be done now—where have all the feminine soldiers gone? The answer is: absolutely nowhere! They are all around us, make up over 50% of our country’s (and world’s) population, they are in our workplaces and in our houses, they are teaching our children and they are deciding our futures, they may even be reading this blog. Whoever and wherever you are, my beautiful “Feminine Mystiques” (check out Betty Friedan, 1963), my loving demonstrators of tenderness, my powerful female soldiers, understand that you are the ones who hold our future in your able and ready hands. Get up; stand up! Be what you were born to be; be the woman that you should be!

**As a side note, it should be kept in mind that the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment) that was previously mentioned, although it was passed by Congress, was never fully ratified by the necessary 38 states and is, as of today, not a part of our Constitution. As of now, 35 states have ratified it, but until another three states do… it will not become the XXVIII Amendment. If you are a woman looking for a place to put your fight, don’t become a rebel without a cause (like James Dean in 1955), call you neighbors, write your senator, find out what can and should be done, and above all remember: the only one who can change your universe is you; do NOT let that which you cannot do interfere with what you know that you can do.
“I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.
--Edward Everett (1794-1865)

For more information on gender equality and the empowerment of women, check out these sites:

Promoting gender equality
Equal rights amendment

The Spartan Woman: Strong

Xerxes: You Greeks take pride in your logic. I suggest you employ it. Consider the beautiful land you so vigorously defend. Picture it reduced to ash at my whim! Consider the fate of your women!

Leonidas: Clearly you don't know our women. I might as well have marched them up here, judging by what I've seen.

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What Are You Afraid Of?

If one’s goal is reformation, revolution, or renewal, one is most often faced with many dilemmas—many mountains needed to be climbed, proverbial rivers that need to be forged. Any great journey is beset on all sides by any number of deterrents, distractions, and obstacles. It is ambition that gets one through, ambition that keeps one’s mind on task. Without ambition, the journey would sooner or later come to a slow, dilapidated, out-of-gas end.

The truth of the matter is that many people are afraid of ambition. It is not failure that scares people; it is not failure that stays the hand where work needs to be done; it is not failure that keeps the feet from moving when walking is needed; it is not failure that terrifies the mind to keep one’s ideas to one’s self. It is success; it is the idea that you are powerful beyond perception, capable beyond comparison, and able beyond measure that fuels the icy claw of fear that grips the hearts and kills the ambition of so many.

Success is a story riddled with trial, and in so being is often avoided. It is never easy to purposefully put one’s self in harm’s way, even if there is a great goal at the end. That is where ambition comes into play—where ambition is needed. Ambition is that equipment needed to climb the mountain; it is the bridge needed to cross the river; it is the purpose needed to convince one’s self to continue on, to persevere, and to never give up.

Keep your ambition and you will be successful. It may not be overnight, it may not be overmonth, but keep your ambition to go forward, to take the next step, and to push past the obstacles that will be in your way. Even when blinded, move forward. Even without a map, keep your feet moving; never ever give up and stay stagnant—awaiting the end of your future and the beginning of nothing. Let your blood flow through your veins with vigor.

A society with ambitious people, coupled with morality and good causes, can overthrow the dilapidated system that has yoked us into submission. A social reformation will spark and easily go out like tinder trying to light a wet fire; but with ambition as the kindling, the fire with slowly, yet surely ablaze!

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Or deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, nor our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be…Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do…As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” Martin Luther King Jr. Read more...