The First Entry

Well, here we are. This is the first entry of my first blog and I am already feeling the churning of excitement and anxiety over the thought of creating content for the foreseeable future. I was told recently that the key to anything is repetition, so I am hopeful that just like taking the first piece of pie from a tin, the entries that follow will be much easier to coax out.

So why am I here? Why am I typing my thoughts out to the vast sea of users and information on the internet? The answer is simple and complex at the same time. You see, the other day I was asked by a coworker, “So, who are you?” the context wasn’t work related, it was completely cordial. They genuinely wanted to learn about me and who I am at my core. As simple of a question as this was, I panicked. I didn’t have the answer. I immediately started running through the facts. “Well, I am 24 with a background in Mechanical Engineering, I spend most weekends skiing, hiking or biking, I have a girlfriend (Emily) and a twin sister (Erica), I have a few classic cars I am restoring, and I live in the Seattle area.” but even when strung together, this didn’t paint a picture of my core values and what makes me tick. I thought this through for a long time, and finally became submissive to the fact that I just don’t know.

This may not seem like a huge deal to most people, but as an engineer, your mind is trained to either have the answer, or dedicate all the time it needs to find the solution. However, for the first time since I could remember, I was at a complete dead end. Not only did I not have the golden ticket, but I had no map to find it.

So that brings me here. For me writing has always been a moment of clarity in an otherwise hectic space. Now that I know the problem I face, I want to use this blog as a tool to track my thoughts and see what draws me in. There is no deadline or grade for this self-assignment, it is completely open ended and may not even be the solution I am looking for, but I know that if nothing else, writing here will give me a few moments of clarity to savor each day.

“The reason why the world lacks unity, and lies broken and in heaps, is, because man is disunited with himself” - Ralph Waldo Emerson