Journey to a Fulfilled Life

Like a lot of young people when I finished high school I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I tried several jobs and some education at the local community college. At the time I had no goals I was trying to achive and decided the education was just a waste of time. It took me about 6 years to find a career I really wanted to pursue, however once I began to progress as a carpenter I was approached to help others in the field by becoming a representative for the Carpenters Union. I was reluctant at first but was persuaded to give it a try because of the skills and knowlege I had aquired.

I soon found that even though I had some skills they were not sufficient enough and needed to find a way to improve myself. When I attended my apprenticeship classes in carpentry at San Jose City College, with the help of the Labor Council, I began attending the Labor Studies Courses. I completed all of the available courses at the time and received a Certificate of Completion in Labor Studies in 1986.

While at San Jose City College I was introduced to several sources of self improvement. One of the first that I came to think of as a basic course in how and why to improve myself was Earl Nightingale's The Strangest Secret Ever Told. Earl Nightingale's The Strangest Secret - Book and AudioBook (For Download).

These past years I have done a lot of reading on improving myself. Stephen Covey's "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" has been an inspiration to me. It is a great guide for the traits that can strategically help a person to develop into the person they want to be. I was so taken with the book that I also purchased the The 7 Habits Signature Series - 7 CD Set to listen to in my car. In my job I spend a lot of time traveling and found that listening to the Cd's is a great way to remind myself of the "habits" and ways to achieve them. Although it is not one of the 7 Habits Covey talks about the P/PC balance in life. This encouraged me to keeping in better touch with my family and getting myself back to the gym to be certain that I had the energy and drive to to the things I needed. Covey also informed us that we should be living our lives by principals.

I found that Ben Franklin continually wrote in his autobiography about improving himself. In his book, The Autobiography of Ben Franklin, one way he talks about improving himself is in what he calls the list of thirteen virtues that he sees as the best to live his life by. In reviewing and after a lot of consideration I think the list of Franklin's virtues fits into my life very well.

So my resolution for this year is to examine each and write about them hear. I will be sharing my thoughts with you and hope that some of you will comment and expand the conversation and understanding of each of the virtues.