Given the content of recent posts, it should surprise no one when I say that I think about writing a great deal. Some mornings, stuck in traffic, I try to tap my creative reserves and capture the details of my surroundings as they might appear in a story. I daydream during class, forming elaborate back stories to explain the motives of the anonymous, faceless characters which inhabit some far corner of my mind. I analyze anything and everything while I read: diction, syntax, bias, logical fallacies; I often toy around with the passages and try and reason out how adding or dropping particular words or sentence structures could improve the work as a whole — though my own writing could usually improve more than published materials, I do not always have access to a computer or notebook, and thus I make do with what is available.

Unfortunately, only a small portion of what I think about ever makes it on to paper. Such a habit is one I need to break, and though this blog has already helped to increase my output, I want to find a method which will motivate me to write more often. I am not looking to make the transition to a high-volume, low-quality blog, I simply need to type up more of what runs through my head on a daily basis.

As such, the piece below is the first part of what I hope will be a running series on determining goals, finding opportunities, and making the most out of life. ‘My Little Piece of the Internet’ will not be deviating too radically from the normal musings; this specific focus is largely for my benefit.

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Time and time again, my personal experiences have reinforced a basic tenet of success espoused by so many experts: approaching a project with a clear goal for the end is instrumental in resolving problems and overcoming challenges. Though I have yet to accept time lines and objective-laden spreadsheets into my life, I never begin anything without some sense of purpose as to what it is I am doing and an understanding of the anticipated end result. To reach this state, however, one must first know one’s self, and realize his or her strengths and weaknesses, past and future.

 

With regards to all of this, I began to think of about ways in which I could summarize my life – and life goals – without settling in to write my autobiography. And as strange as it may sound, I settled on the format of classified ads. They are not necessarily the greatest means of advertising a product or service, but a successful ad follows a specific design: concise (but not too brief), yet still capable of delivering key details.

If I were to ‘advertise’ myself, my life, and my future, I believe it would look something like this:

 

University student with a varied background, including data systems management and child-wrangling, seeks new possibilities and experiences. Particularly interested in opportunities with a writing, research, and analysis focus. Pragmatic and solution-oriented, willing to learn whatever is necessary, and not afraid of a challenge.

 

It’s kind of frivolous, more than a little random, but still quite fun. In two, three, four sentences, how would you ‘classify’ your life?

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Two different sources inspired the creation of this whimsical post. I owe a great deal of credit to Joanna of Confident Writing’ for her focus on ‘taking leaps with writing‘ this past month; the idea for short ‘classified ads’ stemmed from an article in The New Yorker on ultra-short stories told in only six words.