Six years ago this past Friday I could be found sharing a story called "Camp out.. mom and dad's room!
That was March 24, 2017, and it happened to be just the tenth blog post I had created.
Today, March 26, 2023, I have achieved exactly THIRTY TIMES that number as this is the three hundredth grateful man blog post.
#300 - WOW!
When I hit #75, I celebrated the idea of taking all my emails and published them here on my blog site, GratefulMan.com... it was June of 2018, and at that time I didn't even know I was at #75, but dammit! I was thrilled!
Fast forward 2 years into the future, July 2020, I stammered that morning as I struggled to create content... I was all over the place at #175...
Now, another 2.5 years have slipped through the fingers of time bringing me to today. I have created almost another two times as many posts written after! #175.. Today is #300...
Damn
These weekly thoughts have evolved into a public diary of my life, emotions, and thoughts. Like being lost in a good book, I will oftentimes get entrenched for hours reading thoughts from years ago.
Considering the documented history I've created, I couldn't not re-read:
The memories are so fresh, yet at same time, so forgotten. Nonetheless, for me, it's like catching up with an old friend. Actually, it's like talking to someone a couple years younger than me who has the same ambitions as I do.. in this case, I get to revisit each with about two years more of wisdom. The beauty in re-reading them is that they still all ring true to me. Although there are one hundred posts between them, almost two years between each milestone, the takeaway for me is that my authentic compass requires no calibration. Wow... I am "literally" quoting myself here.. Post #100:
the thoughts I've shared have provoked people to share them with their friends and families as a reminder to do different, try, be vulnerable.. because it's okay.. or anything they feel is worth sharing.. or they made a change in their life, took a risk on something, stepped out of their comfort zone... being the one to have unintentionally kicked over that rock for them.. man.. talk about personally moving!..
Post #200:
Putting all of my thoughts down, especially in a public platform like this, has unintentionally required that I get to know myself at a very vulnerable and authentic level.. all of which has built a purpose of intentionality that I try to live by where at the end of the day, I like the person I've become; well becoming.. it's a lifetime of effort. :)
Have you ever seen the movie "23" with Jim Carrey?
It's about a man who loses his shit by being able to connect the #23 to significant dates in the past or future, all alluding to a rabbit hole of conspiracy. Damn interesting movie. Conspiracy aside, lol, with three hundred blog posts under my belt has linked dates and circumstances to my life that I find equally surprising. Just this post alone:
My 10th blog post written March 24, 2017..
Thirty times that, my 300th post, written March 26th, 2023.
Yes, those are simple, sure. Until writing this post I didn't connect the dots I'm about to share. With so much written content I have to break things down into their own files. Every year for the last 15 years, I name each one with a specific goall in mind. A suggestive/subliminal message I read almost daily. Once my blog started adding up, this only solidified my intent. The year of 2022 was named "Define Time" It was a message of action to me to define my time, to use my time, to leverage my time for me. For years I had found myself in the current of life taking me where the world wanted me to go. Although I was the creator of this world, the actions that brought me here just happened, rather than being specifically intentional. As structured as I may come across outwardly, deep inside, I was asleep at the wheel. If I wasn't going to define my time, I would likely end up in the same spot with life floating by aimlessly. The awareness of this "internal struggle" gets uncovered and discovered through my blog. It has been through the effort of spending thousands of hours in my head, feeling with my heart, and speaking through this keyboard that I have been able to find myself. As this is my #300 blog post, being this day, with such a topic, this is the correlated circumstantial crescendo I cannot look past... My blog post on March 25th, 2022, The happening
As comfortable as I've become writing about being vulnerably transparent, the details I was facing were one's that I wasn't ready to share. I wasn't in a good spot spiritually, emotionally or professionally; I wasn't happy. The choice of my words were metaphoric in detail, but profound in their reality.
The selection of the picture was also metaphorically sought out for: The life I created required that I stay on the track ahead, although into the unknown, the path was ridged and one way. In the effort of knowing what "defining my time meant" regardless of the pain I was in, I was going to jump across lanes in the opposite direction anyone expected me to. ~for me.
It was the action of leaning into my vulnerability, spending time with myself, while intimately getting to know the person I am striving to become that gave me the courage to take those steps. The outcome of that effort would have been impossible without being behind this keyboard, transparently sharing my life with the world, all the while talking to myself simultaneously.
The universe led me to unintentionally memorialize that time to achieving #300 blog posts.
I am left with nothing more than an overwhelming feeling of gratitude :)
Although it took me more than a year to define my time well enough so that I could even take the certification test, here we are today, a year later after certification, the train I am on still hasn't fully crossed the tracks yet.
Once I do cross those tracks, you will be the first to know ;)
For now, I am just loving the fact that I can even say that I have written #300 blog posts.
Before I close, such a momentous achievement wouldn't be what it could be without some weird-ass Josh-style data of measurable context reflecting effort.
In three hundred weekly blog posts, I have missed 22 weeks.
(that's almost half a year!)
It takes me ONE hour of creative writing and editing to create ONE MINUTE's worth of reading.
On my blog page, in the corner of every post there's a reading time indicator that will tell you how long each post is...
not including this #300 post, there is a total of 1,131 Minutes of readable content!
Which makes for 18.85 Hours of continual reading
Following the formula above, that means I have spent at least 1,131 Hours WRITING
Each post averages a 4 minute read via 4 hours of effort each week
This commitment has become a part-time job!
Those 1,131 hours has created 7 Grateful Man Books:
Book 1, 2017 | Commit: 13,856
Book 2, 2018 | Be Consistent: 42,930
Book 3, 2019 | Have the Discipline: 43,379
Book 4, 2020 | Sharpen Your Focus: 72,427
Book 5, 2021 | Engage: 54,906
Book 6, 2022 | Define Time: 52,970
Book 7, 2023 | Be Unstoppable: 13,130
Total: 293,418 WORDS
It's March 2023, and I'm only 726 words short of beating the year 2017. Including this #300 post will exceed that year's word count HAHAH! :)
Being in the spot I am right now, recalling the entire history, I could never have expected any of this growth. Although I do this for me and my sanity... I am grateful to share this with a buddy like you. ~thank you <3 We are here if you need anything! Have a grateful weekend my friend! Just as post #100, #200, this is the 300th picture of my, now 1,060 background pictures. Cheers to #300!
