Introspection on Extroversion

I knew a man who was late for everything. We all expected him to be late. One day, we say why  he was always late. This man was giving us a ride and he passed by a man on the street who needed some help. He took the time out of his day to help out the man on the street. As the drive continued, he stopped to get gas. As he paid for gas at the register, he struck up a conversation with the cashier, and it looked like the cashier enjoyed the conversation. Through other drives with him, we found out he was characteristically late because he characteristically making conversation and making other people happy more important than being exactly on time. There's obviously a question of respect for other people's time, but now's not the time for that discussion. Today, I got to experience that side of extroversion and realize that it takes time, but it's highly rewarding. A few of my appointments fell through, giving me approximately an hour and a half of extra time. All of

One thing I used to not do very well at is setting a goal and doing whatever it takes to get there. I would usually get stuck and feel like I was all out of resources. But I decided to set a goal for myself: I will release Episode 1 of the Song Appeal podcast by Friday. I spent basically the entire day preparing the podcast. I wrote Draft 3 of the script for Episode 1, I set up the podcast through a free Podcast Hosting app, and even set up a website for it. I've never set up a website for any real purpose before. I set up one awful practice website years ago, but never one like this. I managed to not only register the domain, but set up the website to be fully functioning (so far) without any outside help. I just Googled stuff and figured it out. Occasionally, I ran into big problems. I wanted social media buttons like the video essayist channels have. In particular, I wanted a Patreon button like LessonsFromTheScreenplay.com has. Most importantly, I wanted the cover art on

I finally got to start working on the podcast yesterday. Just before I went to bed, I found out something I needed to do as soon as possible to get the podcast up. But it was too late to do it right then, so it would have to wait for Monday. Today, I was so excited about the podcast that having a Sunday honestly felt like kind of a burden. I realized this as soon as I got up. Then I realized that I haven't gotten that much out of Church since I moved to Utah. And I felt like I'd just gotten into a state of spiritual apathy. I asked God for help to get out of this state of spiritual apathy and He replied "Study the Book of Mormon". Unfortunately, I had to leave for Church right away. Since I didn't get to study the Book of Mormon before Church, I spent all of Church waiting to get to study the Book of Mormon. But I did get some more revelation on how to come out of this state of spiritual apathy, including: Go to a temple session (specifically an endowment sessi

How do you discern whether an impression is of God? Over the past few weeks and months, I've ruminated on the idea of starting up a podcast and YouTube series answering the question "Why do we like the music we like?" After a little while, I got the forceful impression "Stop making that podcast." Frankly, I couldn't put it down. Or rather, the idea wouldn't put me down. The idea kept bothering me, weighing on my mind. Occasionally, I would see something new that I needed to learn to make that podcast truly effective. Occasionally, I would hear a song and think "What would I say in my podcast about that?" And this week, it took up so much of my thoughts that I figured it must be the Holy Ghost having it weigh heavily on my mind. Why? First, because I've noticed God usually doesn't give me forceful impressions like "Stop making that podcast." The way He usually speaks to me is through simpler, calmer impressions lik

After staying up until 3:30 last night, I woke up around 9:30 for my 10:00 class. I rushed to Campus, where I found that people had sent the papers to me that they were supposed to. So I rushed to the library, printed off the papers, and rushed into class, where we discussed those papers. I hadn't read them yet, so I was reading them while discussing them. It turned out well, but should have turned out better. The problem was: I didn't get to shower before class. My hair looked bad and I kind of stank. I didn't expect that would be a problem. Until I started a conversation with a beautiful girl on the way out of class. Then I realized "I really do need to get up early enough to shower every day, because I never know when I'll run into a conversation like this and I want to be ready." A few minutes later, I found that I had completely overlooked a lesson with a new student. That's the second time this week. With both those issues, I decided it was ti

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said "Say whatever words you will, you can never say anything but what you are." An experience today showed me how that changes conversation. I love my job. In fact, I'm passionate about my job. When I talked with someone about it today, she could see the passion in my eyes and complimented me on my appreciation for music. The fact that I was so passionate about teaching and music led the conversation to be open to my question: "What about you? What's something you're passionate about?" Whereas she had been sitting at a 45- or even 90-degree angle to me, she turned to sit towards me square-on to tell me about her passion for cognitive behavioral therapy and her desire to help everyone know about CBT so it can improve the normal, everyday lives of people without  mental disorders. Because I really was passionate, I could speak in a way that was passionate, which gave her social permission to speak in a way that is passionate.