Two weeks into 2022!

Hi there, Steve Barnes here with Live Writing. Live. Just talking about the completion of the first two weeks of 2022. Just still trying to figure all this out in the beginning of a new year. But first of all, I'm Steve Barnes, creator of Life Writing, novelist, husband, father, television writer, that kind of stuff. And I'm just here to kind of share some tools and share some thoughts and share my life in that sense. At the end of the year, what I like to do is take a look at what I accomplished in the previous year and see what could I have done better? What are my long term goals? What did I want to do short term, what did I accomplish? What didn't get done? Did I do all that I could? What do I want to accomplish in the next year? What am I doing every day? If I keep doing this every day, will I get there? If I know that my current goals are being supported by my current actions and all I need to do is to continue those actions, then it's just a matter of what do I need to do to increase my motivation to do those actions in my motivation to continue. If I've got bad habits that I need to break, then I need to look into how to break those bad habits. But it's being willing to take a look at what the previous year was and what the next year is going to be, and then where am I? So that every day I just chop wood, carry water, just get out of bed, do certain things all day, and if I do those things, I'm going to get the life that I want, that my family deserves. The that in that sense that your family deserves. It's working backwards from the idea that the meaning of life is to be happy. So how can we be happy short and long term? I would say that you're going to be happiest if your family is healthy, if your actions are of benefit to your community. So it's not just a matter of me in terms of my own individual selfish desires. Nothing wrong with those. There's nothing wrong with selfishness. The problem is when you have a limited definition of self, if your self includes your family, your friends, your community, your nation, the world, life itself, existence, where does yours stop? But start with just taking care of yourself, making sure that you're safe. So working backwards from the idea that the meaning of life is to be joyful, to seek joy, then the first thing you have to do is make sure you're out of pain. What do you need to do to do that? You need to make enough money to keep a roof over your head. You need to keep your body together. You need to keep your relationship together. Money and physicality and relationship love connection. Start with those things and you will automatically begin to extend outwards to the world. You need to make money by being a perceived benefit to others. You need to take care of your body by balancing the emotional need to eat in community, for instance, or spend time with people with your need to eat the things that are healthy for you and increase your energy and to spend time taking care of you for you. In terms of relationships, well, obviously you need to start with self love and a sense of self worth and then connect that to what, what is it that you can offer others? What can you do to benefit others? That one special person that's the core of human existence is a couple bonded, producing children, who then go out and bond and produce children. Who go out and bond and produce children. So even if you don't intend to have kids, even if you are infertile or too old or too young, or, or simply make the choice not to, for any number of different reasons, we're still living in a world in which that primary connection has been important to every generation, coming before you, all the way back to living in the trees. But the core of that is once you have developed some self awareness is who are you asking myself, who was I in 2021 such that these things happen? What is it that I choose to do in the next year such that who I am naturally leads to what I do for good solid reasons, which then leads to creation of the life that I find joyful. That you find joyful. So it is looking at that, it's asking yourself where you want to be, Ask yourself where you've been, asking yourself if your current behaviors will get you where you want to be and did they create the world that you wanted? If so, then just you're one of the blessed. Hopefully you're happy doing those things. And just doing those things is enabling your life. If not, find ways to be happy doing these new things. Hopefully you can find ways to be happy doing the things that will lead to that health, that success, that connection. But if you have to do things that hurt a little bit that are boring to you, then hopefully find ways to do them as efficiently and effectively as possible. It's like if you like walking for an hour, two hours, that's great, but if you don't, you still need to exercise. So you find the most efficient exercise and that could be take no more than 10 minutes a day. Doing the thing that is efficient, if you can't do anything that is fun. But one way or the other, what you have to do is to take care of yourself. You have to make a living. And if you love someone, you have to do maintenance on that relationship every single day. That's all for today. Just, you know, this is the end of the week, so I'm taking a look at stuff. We're in our podcast. We did our first interview for the podcast with Roy Woods Jr. It's going to be up on on Sunday. You know, from the Daily show, beautiful, beautiful man. Really brilliant. Had some really great things to say about careers and life and life balance. And that'll be up on Sunday. You'll be able to get that at lifewritingpodcast. Com absolutely free. You take care, people. Have a wonderful weekend and live with passion. Take care.