Recently, I've learned the importance of meditating on a more consistent basis. I've noticed a lot of pessimism and negativity around me lately and it's gradually been taking its toll on my mental state. Once you get trapped in that negative state, it gets increasingly harder to remove yourself from all of it as time goes by. I started losing sight of some of my passions due to gaining a lethargic "what's the point" perspective on life. This was not only aided by negative mindsets, but also by less-than-great circumstances occurring in my personal life. It sort of snuck up on me and at one particularly bad point, it dawned on me that I was drowning in it. I liken it to the anecdote of the frog in a slowly boiling pot of water. If negativity is gradually added into your life over a long period of time, you won't notice just how much has been pilling up and draining you physically, mentally and emotionally...

   So I recently picked up a Moleskine journal for the first time. I've never really had any kind of nice journal before, except this cool Scooby Doo one when I was about 7. Usually whenever I needed to write things down in the past I'd just get those crappy, generic spiral bound notebooks that were 3 for $1 at Kmart. You know the type, everyone had them. Around the time middle school came around and I had my own computer that wasn't "the family computer", everything moved over digitally into wordpad (thanks windows 98). All of that aside, I've been wanting to switch things up. I pretty much use Evernote for everything nowadays, but I miss analog forms of writing. Not for any nostalgic reason, but I personally feel like I take more in when I physically have to write out my words. It physically demands more attention and the payoff for finishing up that long winded piece you were writing has a much more cathartic feel to it. Maybe that's just me though...