Achievements

I am compiling a list of my achievements. Great or small, this is a list of things I have done that I am proud of.  I am using this as a weapon against self-immolation. I have spent much of my life suffering from the debilitating, self-induced condition of refusing to grant myself value. I have riddled my life with self-doubt, insecurity, and nearly a complete absence of self-esteem. This is my greatest sin: to live my life without pride.

This list will continue grow over the course of my life, and I want to remember with fierce pride all that I have accomplished. Self esteem is the most important value I can ever achieve. It is the highest of all values, because it is the value I place on myself. Nothing could be more vital.

These are not ranked. They are ordered only by what first comes to mind.

1. I invested ~$4,500 in 300 oz. of silver when it was around $15/oz. As of today (4/27/11) it is at $47/oz., bringing me up to $14,100; almost $10,000 in profit. This was the first investment I ever made.

2. I lived successfully and independently in San Diego for 2 years. I moved there when I was 20 years old. I had no family and only 1 friend. I supported myself and proved to myself my ability to not only survive but to thrive. I moved back home for several reasons, but failure was not one of them.

3. I climbed the ladder. In less than those two years in San Diego, I worked my way up from a per diem file clerk to a full-time Senior Medical Records Specialist (3 raises, 2 promotions, and 4 site changes). The job came with a lot of responsibility. I dealt specifically with HIPAA compliance, sometimes informing even lawyers of the proper legal route for obtaining confidential health information. It could be very stressful at times but I was proud of my ability to do it, and I did it well.

4. I am 25 years old and I bought my first home 3 weeks ago. It is beautiful. It’s a 2bd/1ba house with 2 living areas, a garage, new carpet and paint, recently remodeled, with central heat and air for $75,000. My credit is stellar.  It may not be income producing real estate, but that is soon to follow.

5. In San Diego I took a course on General Accounting Principles. I did not have a major. I didn’t care about the credit. I only took it to learn the subject. Out of 40 or so students that were in my class, only 6 of us were left at the end of the semester. I had the 2^nd highest grade in the class, and I scored the highest on the final exam. The instructor suggested I become a CPA, but I want to employ CPAs.

6.  I strive for logical consistency in my life as well as my philosophy.  I am an atheist and an anarchist, not because of my rebellious nature, but because of my strict adherence to principles. I seek the truth in everything and believe that reality is both consistent and logical. All the suffering in the world comes from the manipulation of truth. The initiation of force and fraud is morally abhorrent and dishonest; and is never justifiable, because to do so is to abandon the truth.

7. On July 24^th, 2010 I married the love of my life. She is the single most important thing in the world to me. I am beyond proud of her.

more to follow...

"People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim. What I've learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication, because one surrenders one's reality to the person to whom one lies, making that person one's master, condemning oneself from then on to faking the sort of reality that person's view requires to be faked. And if one gains the immediate purpose of the lie – the price one pays is the destruction of that which the gain was intended to serve. The man who lies to the world, is the world's slave from then on... But there are no white lies, there is only the blackest of destruction, and a white lie is the blackest of all."

"You seek escape from pain. We seek the achievement of happiness. You exist for the sake of avoiding punishment. We exist for the sake of earning rewards. Threats will not make us function; fear is not our incentive. It is not death that we wish to avoid, but life that we wish to live. You, who have lost the concept of the difference, you who claim that fear and joy are incentives of equal power—and secretly add that fear is the more “practical”—you do not wish to live, and only fear of death still holds you to the existence you have damned."

"You have seen the Atlantis they were seeking, it is here, it exists--but one must enter it naked and alone, with no rags from the falsehoods of centuries, with the purest clarity of mind--not an innocent heart, but that which is much rarer: an intransigent mind--as one's only possession and key. You will not enter it until you learn that you do not need to convince or to conquer the world. When you learn it, you will see that through all the years of your struggle, nothing had barred you from Atlantis and there were no chains to hold you, except the chains you were willing to wear. Through all those years, that which you most wished to win was waiting for you." -Atlas Shrugged

"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough." - Frederic Bastiat

We have a home!
This weekend we closed on our house. It is our first property we've ever purchased, and it is amazing! I can't say enough for how well kept it is. The previous owners put a lot of work into it. It has new paint, new carpet, new fixtures, new tile, and they even built on a HUGE living room in the back.
We spent the weekend moving in and making it OURS. Our biggest obstacle was appliances, but we're finally done with those. We have a new washer and dryer, a brand new stove, and an old, ugly refrigerator that took us 2 days to disassemble, clean, and reassemble. But it's clean, and it's OURS. We still have a lot of work to do for the next few months just to get everything perfect, but every ounce of energy spent on it is worth it.
I love our new house!

The mind is inherently efficient. The difficulties you have with problem-solving and social interactions are habits that you have developed over time. They are distortions of reality. They are learned behaviors, not default positions.

It often feels as though these problems are obstacles to be surmounted, mountains to be ascended, skills to learn, or flaws to overcome. But they are not! Your mind, by default, is socially geared. It is more than capable of creating ingenious solutions to every problem imaginable.

You don’t have to overcome anything. You just have to let go of fear and bad habits.

We’re gong to Mineral Wells this weekend. I stopped by the 3^rd floor today to let my mom know and to fill her in on things that have been occurring lately.

I chose to see her today, because she’s hasn’t asked to see me in a while. Usually when I see her, its out of guilt or pity, because she’s had to beg or plead with me to spend time with her. But today, I saw her out of respect, because she hasn’t begged for my attention. She has given me space; recognized me as an individual who makes my own choices for my own reasons. I can enjoy spending time with her if we stand on level ground for mutual benefit.

But, if she makes claims on my time, attention, or emotions, then I lose that respect. She has often been guilty in the past of making claims on my life and of being demanding of my time because of all the “things she’s done for me…” Well, I don’t respond to demands. I do not respond to obligations pushed on me without my consent. I do not ask for favors I cannot repay. I sternly object to gifts of time and attention that are to be unloaded on me without my awareness or consent so that a person may collect an undetermined debt on me in the future.

I am an admirer of freedom, and all that it entails. I respect people who respect my decisions. I respect people who don’t expect or wait for me to make the decisions that they think I should make. Give me respect and freedom, and you will have my admiration and companionship. But start making demands, claims of debt, gratitude owed; if you start to try to bury me in guilt and relentless pity, I will vehemently retract from you all that you ask for. I am not a charity. I am a human being of value. I will only exchange respect for respect; worth with worth. I do not give to people who only take.