Organic Mutant

Change is hard. Sticking with the status quo is easier, even when it requires lots of work and sacrifice. Why? Because making up your mind to change and creating new realities is a difficult thing to do. It can be painful. Even when life is difficult on a day-to-day basis, it almost always seems easier to stick with what you’ve got than to stand up, change direction, and leave the old baggage behind.

The few times in my life when I have actively undertaken efforts to change my life - job, relationship, education, or mindset - the results have always been immensely rewarding. Not only that, but making changes - successfully - has proven a tremendous source of confidence. I believe that when I make my mind up to do something, I can. Period.

The trouble I seem to have is that I find it difficult to make decisions about just how I’d like to change things. Without a plan to change, there is not much of a plan at all. The problem with that - to be clichéd - is that when you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Now, I do not feel like a failure. However, I do feel that for a couple of years now, I have been a leaf in the wind, more a product of circumstance than master of my own destiny.

Today, I commit myself to a few ideals, goals, and changes that I have spent a long time chewing on but never swallowing (or spitting out!):

• Renew my independent web + graphic design business: DP has languished undernourished for nearly a year. It is too important to me personally and financially to let that continue. To address this, I am undertaking an aggressive schedule of designing or re-designing 5 websites in the next 6 weeks. No calls. Also part of this goal is to:
• Update my portfolio: Two things: As it currently exists, my online portfolio is, um, shabby. It needs to be organized in an elegant and informative manner. Second, I have a significant body of work that is unaccounted for currently. This will be completed within two weeks.
• Record a demo: I have been dj’ing, rapping, and producing since I was 14 years old. I have some outstanding material ready to record. I will record at least three tracks and put out a demo byJanuaryy 2006.
• Travel abroad: within 6 months I will travel to Spain.
• Be a better friend: I consider myself a good friend with poor discipline, when it comes to staying in contact with certain people. So over the rest of this year and into early next year, I will identify a group of, say, 5-10 people who are important to me but I’m not necessarily in close contact with, and make efforts to re-establish those friendships.

I could go on, but I think that for now I have already set an aggressive agenda. Luckily, I am single, so I am quite free to spend a lot of time indulging myself in these efforts, at least for the time being. Most of these things have been on my mind as vague, foggily formed ideas for a long,longg time. This post is really here for me - not my dear readers - as a commitment to myself and a declaration of things that matter to me.

So, I’ve sworn to reform. Let’s see how I perform…