This past month was a total failure as far as my monthly challenge was concerned. I did fairly well the first week and a half, but it was downhill from there. However, I learned some valuable lessons that I think made the month worthwhile despite the personal debacle. Here are some of the important insights that were gleaned:

• Make decisiveness a fundamental paradigm. In my experience, any action or thought is usually better than brain fog. Either think constructively or act purposely, but by all means be moving forward and not stalling. I tend to believe that if I am conscious and decisive about my actions and opinions that whatever path I end up taking will turn out to be the best. Spiritually, this correlates with Romans 8:28.
• Function in totally focused blocks of time. Let’s be real. We are human and cannot always give our full focus to something as we might like. So, expect that your focus and energy will wane and be okay with it. If you are working on an important project, and despite your best effort, you just feel like procrastinating, give yourself a 10-minute break. I believe it is much better to take these breaks even if they happen often, than be semi-focused and not get anything of real importance accomplished. Allow your mind to wander and do anything you like for that block of time. When the 10 minutes is up, you will be able to put yourself back into your project with full focus. On a larger scale, this is really what living in appointed times by faith is all about.
• Add a third category of actions between minor and major – semi-important. While purchasing an expensive item online or deciding whether to join a Toastmasters club are definitely not major actions in any sense of the word, I also would not categorize them as minor. They represent a commitment of a decent amount of time or money and therefore should be given more thought than, say, deciding whether to practice yoga tonight. However, I think for most of these actions, setting a deadline for when you will make these decisions will enable you to be conscious and decisive but still give some thought to these choices. So, you might give yourself 5 minutes to decide whether to purchase that item online or give yourself till the end of the day to decide whether you will join a Toastmasters club.

One of the problems I faced this past month with respect to decisiveness was my self-image quandary. Now, this is nothing new, but it really came to a head this past month. I had good intentions. I really wanted to figure out how I should handle this.

First off, I wrestled with my purpose statement of living for total health and consciousness forever. Even just thinking about total health depressed me because I don’t believe I will ever in this life have anything close to that. I do believe in the possibility that some treatment (besides surgery) or exercise regime could straighten my back and take away my pain, but I am not expecting this to ever happen. Now this thought process yielded a simple but incredibly liberating conclusion.

I became a monist idealist. This means I now believe that only one type of thing exists in reality and that one thing is consciousness. This might sound weird, but quantum physics gives solid evidence for this concept. This allowed me to look at consciousness as supreme, and health, posture, fitness, and diet, though important, as simply channels to obtain higher consciousness, simply means to an end and not an end in themselves. But I believe I can reach total consciousness without perfect health or appearance.

So, I changed my purpose statement to: living for total consciousness forever. This may seem like a small, esoteric change, but it has made a big difference in my outlook. However, the second thing I realized while in my self-image quandary paralleled the concept that catapulted me out of philosophical depression last summer. That is, I am not going to solve all my self-image problems today, or tomorrow, or next week, or next year, or in ten years! That being the case, the important thing is to do something, to have some paradigm in dealing with my self image that I can follow for this week, or this day, or even just this moment, and believe in this paradigm. Then evaluate it at the appropriate time. I think punctuated oblivion is a paradigm that I can function with for now, but I fully expect it to change.

One very practical aspect of decisiveness is that not as many questions need to be written down during the week. Now, this idea of writing down things during the week to think about during the next philosophical appointed time I believe is an incredible concept. However, it has to be kept in check. Generating too many thoughts or questions to look over can turn what should be a fun and educational experience into a dreaded chore.

So, will I repeat this monthly challenge at some point in the future? Probably not, because I am seeking to make this more of a 24/7 paradigm, so there will not be a need for that. What this past month has shown me is that sometimes my failures can teach me more and cause more growth than my successes, as paradoxical as that sounds.