I started taking Stoicism more seriously now. I began with an activity that we also do every day, sleeping. “What did I change?” you may ask. I changed the way I sleep. I removed the bed and pillows to sleep on the floor. Why did I do this? I did this to appreciate the bed and pillow.

I noticed other homeless people that sleep solely on the streets. If they’re lucky, they would sleep on cardboards. I think that the way to appreciate things that we have now is to commit ourselves to non-use of these things for a short period of time.

Earlier this morning, I slept on the floor. It was cold, hard, and riddled with cockroaches. I slept normally, however, the moment I woke up my sides were painful. So, I took the mattress and dropped it on the floor. I took a pillow then body slammed myself to the mattress.

In that moment, I felt bliss. The thing that I’m lying on is soft and the pillow that supported my head was also soft. I was happy and smiling when I was sleeping again. I find it funny that I was happy at that moment to have those things back.

I woke up again at around 9AM, I set up my workstation and began doing some reading and writing. Previously, I have committed myself to challenges, and now I’m acting on them. I fear that I wouldn’t be consistent as I would like to, since it’s the first day of the week. I’m only expecting this kind of motivation and discipline for the first three days.

Last week, I was on a roll however that didn’t last long. I felt bored, tired, and bored again. It was boring, and I had nothing to do. I started doubting myself whether to commit to those choices that I made. In the end, I abandoned them. Here we are today, doing a challenge.

This challenge requires me to write 500 words every day. It’s an ambitious challenge that is certainly hard. I already ran out of things to say, but I still committed myself to write these words to reach the word count. I did this because I know that I have a lot of things to say, but I did not have the skills to express myself properly yet. I also think that writing something when you don’t have necessarily have things to write about is interesting since you come up with sentences that you wouldn’t necessarily think about.

Sometimes, the good sentences, words, and paragraphs happen in the process of making them rather than thinking about them. The spontaneous activity of writing allows more freedom and better things to say. What you think may be crap right is necessary to be written down. What you’re thinking must be written even if it feels bad because at the end of the day. It all comes down to editing.

Damn, I have the reached the quota for today, and I feel damn good about myself. I love the process of writing. It makes everything so clear and precise. It’s funny how few words could make an impact in the world. Stick and stones may break my bones, but words could change a society and the way the world operates.