I don't really know why I decided to start writing this... actually that's a lie. I know exactly what made me need to start writing this. I was sitting on my computer wasting away my time as usual. I was stumbling around when I ended up on a site called Zen Pencils. It's a web comic where the artist takes famous and inspirational quotes and draws a comic to go along with it. After looking through a few of them, I came across one about "11 ways to be unremarkably average" I thought that it was cool and I'd have to read more of them later. Not take any of them to heart, not think on the meaning behind them, just to look at more of them later.

The next day I was sitting at my office desk, staring at my computer, thoroughly not caring about anything that was on it. I realized that I didn't care about my job. I had no investment, no desire to work, beyond money and not getting yelled at by my boss. As I sat there slowly having a panic attack, until for some reason I thought about Zen Pencils. I thought about "11 ways to be unremarkably average" and Ira Glass on storytelling and everything else I had read the night before. I let it all sink in and I thought about each and every one that I had read... and my heart began to ache. Somewhere along the line from from childhood I had lost something. I had been doing nothing but working for the last 6 years. Not drawing, not painting, not creating much of anything that didn't come as a kit in a cardboard box. Everything I didn't want became the center of my world. I took classes I didn't care about. I had jobs I hated. I sat there at home doing nothing when I had everything to work on.

Now I'm still young, so I can't say that this was some world shattering epiphany but it's definitely forced a change in heading. I'm just starting out on the road of life and I could already tell I didn't like where I was going. I was having a mid-life crisis at 24. I was living the life of an average, ordinary and thoroughly boring person. I had never been any of those things in my life and somehow just when it was starting, there I was bathing in mediocrity and I never even noticed getting in the tub. I have been a creative person my entire life. drawing, painting, sculpting, wood work. I love learning new things. I love creating new things and since I starting living in the "real" world, I've completely lost sight of that aspect of my life. It was a twang of loss, that I felt, such a huge part of my life left behind in the pursuit of money and security. A loss of passion and fire for the things I love. The loss of the desire to create rather than just consume. I was the hero of my own story for so long and now I simply watch from the other side of the TV as others do the things I've always wanted. I'm tired of staring at the steep towers that hold the things I want... I want to climb them.

Now I know it a cliche, but this is my pledge... I will change my life. 

I will create. I will travel. I will do things I've never done before. I will learn everything I can. I will be everything I've ever wanted to be. I will live my life to the fullest and love every minute of it.

I choose to be more...

Now I sit in front of my computer with purpose, but here comes the hard part... seeing it through.

Do or do not, my friends... there is no try.