Some background details are required; this is a two-part post.
A few weeks ago, Jeff Widman was kind enough to take the time to engage me in a phone coversation about the direction I was thinking of taking in life. He started the conversation off with what should have been a simple question, but rather managed to leave me sputtering for an answer: ”What are your interests and passions?”
I had already begun to explore this topic in the past few months, but my inability to provide a definite response served as a wake-up call that a quest to find direction and advice would certainly be hindered by not even knowing for what I needed to ask.
That phone call not only helped prompt the beginning of a series of intermittent posts on finding one’s story, but also forced me to address what I consider my own interests and passions to be. I utilized, however, a different strategy than intensive self-reflection I thought might be required to manage this endeavor.
My logic went something like this (and was partially revised after viewing Charlie Hoehn’s ‘How to Hack Someone’s Mind‘):
- I read a fair number of articles each day that cover a decent range of subjects.
- I don’t actually file these articles, beyond leaving them clumped together in Google Reader.
- A current goal of mine is to be able to provide a clear response when asked what interests me and what topics I would like to pursue in greater focus.
- Cohesively, these articles ostensibly represent my interests. Putting them in decent order could potentially reveal to me answers to some of my larger questions. a). Worst case scenario: I share a lot of fun articles with friends while injecting some organization into my life.
And so I began sharing articles on Facebook. And so I quickly realized that while Facebook does a lot, a top-notch social bookmarking site it is not. Thus began my foray into delicious.
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I plan to round out a lot in the follow-up to this post, as well as provide some insight as to what the title means. Thanks, as always, for reading this far.
March 1, 2009 at 8:06 pm
Awesome Glenn! I sure have been enjoying the article sharing.
And you have me intrigued as to what you mean by your title.
March 2, 2009 at 1:23 pm
Very nice idea. Reminds me of Esther Dyson’s quote re: Google (I think ’twas Dyson): “We aren’t searching Google, it is searching us.” and how it becomes nice reflection of our interests.
btw, it is a hard question that i asked you. i just finished spending a month thinking through my big picture–like long term. and i explained it to a mentor on the phone today–three weeks of thinking took three minutes to explain. LOL. But these things just take time. And trial/error.
March 4, 2009 at 6:55 pm
[...] The relevancy of procrastination, part 2 Posted by Glenn under Uncategorized In my last post, I discussed how, in an on-going exploration of what interests me, I have begun keeping record of [...]