The Journal Prompt

Insightful Journal Prompts Delivered Weekly.

Good morning!

Welcome back to The Journal Prompt, your weekly companion for introspection and personal growth. 🌿

This week, we’ll dive into Your Promethean Task.

Let’s get started!

In This Week’s Issue (9-minute read)

💬 Quote of the Week

🖼️ Framing Your Reflection

🚨 Big Announcement

✍️ Three Insightful Journal Prompts

⚒️ Featured Photo & Affirmation

🚨 It’s Here 🚨

We’ve been hinting at something for several weeks - and it’s finally ready.

Who this is for? 🙋

✅ Self-development is a priority for you

✅ You want to surround yourself with loving Truth Tellers

✅ You are not afraid to discover things about yourself that may scare you

If this sounds like you, then you’ll LOVE it.❤️

We’re announcing it 📣

⏰ LIVE this Wednesday August 28th at 12pm Eastern. ⏰

👉Click to Join Us Live!👈

Framing Your Reflection 🖼️

We humans have something unique about us that no other animal on Earth has - the power of imaginative creation. To think of something awesome and bring it to life.

All other species rely on instinct to navigate the world.

But just as the person that can read and chooses not to is no different than a person who is illiterate….

Are we any different from those instinct-based, auto-pilot animals if we don’t use our ability to create? 🧐

If you follow this newsletter, you probably already bend (at least a little) toward creativity.

I know many of you keep beautiful journals, create scrapbooks, write fiction, paint on canvas, etc.

And while those works are admirable in their own right, they can really only serve as a means to an end for the ultimate project where our creativity should go - ourselves.

Self-creation is the pinnacle project. Molding ourselves like clay is the greatest and most pleasurable of life tasks.

But there is a danger 😳 here that we often forget…

This molding happens with or without our active participation.

Humans are also social animals.

The world is constantly trying to assign you a role, label you 🏷️, and restrict you with limitations to make you predictable and easy to control.

In no uncertain terms, understand this: the moment you accept that role, you are ruined.

Too strong a word?

Nope.

By accepting the role, whether we chose it willingly or allowed society to force it upon us, we by definition limit our power only to the small amount that role has.

Under the heavy shackles of others’ expectations, how can we possibly shape our life experience into something that’s meaningful for us? How can we adapt to the future if the definition we have accepted for ourselves is constantly rooted in the past expectation of others?

Let’s not misconstrue this as not caring what others think.

Not only is that near impossible to do given our sociological nature, it’s also not useful.

Shaping our version of reality into what we want requires the ability to exert influence, and how can we do that without giving serious thought to how others perceive us?

This is about deliberately choosing to wield the power of perception, and that means controlling our appearances, our emotions, and what we choose to do or not, instead of letting the world choose for us.

Giving practicality to the theoretical, I’ll use myself as an example.

I am a Father that refuses to coddle his children, despite the societal push to want to shield and protect them from everything, because I believe meaning lies in the assumption of responsibility, the key component in that is building the Courage muscle.

I am a Veteran, but I refuse to let my time in the service limit me to only pursuing professional aspirations in defense and national security related things.

I am a husband, but I refuse to abide by “Happy Wife, Happy Life”, and opt for instead “Happy Spouse, Happy House” because I do not underestimate my ability to resent my wife if I always just let her have her way, especially when I disagree on something that’s important to me.

It’s also unfair pressure to put on my wife by expecting her to have the right answer, all the time, for everything we will ever encounter in our lives. She wants a partner, not a doormat.

I am a citizen, but I refuse to polarize myself into a single camp of political thought. I believe that we are a lot more alike than we are different, and it’s impossible for a single type of theory to have all the answers, all the time - the world is too complex for binary.

I am a philosopher, but refuse to pursue that discipline purely academically. I choose instead to do things like this newsletter and journal - find ways to take the philosophical and turn it practical and useful.

I am by no means perfect. In everything I just mentioned I falter……constantly.

But I believe the most important thing about creating ourselves is how fast we can reset after we’ve fallen off the horse.

Do not relinquish your power of creation over your own life to people who don’t bear the consequences - this is moral hazard at its riskiest because time is irreversible.

Create yourself into a person that has no boundaries assigned to it by an envious and resentful world.

If you don’t, you kill your creation power, and you’ll grow resentful and envious yourself of those in the world that have this power. You become the problem monster.

It will be hard and painful to hammer and chisel at your own clay.

But it beats the hell out of letting others mold you into something you’ll hate.

Three Journal Prompts ✍️

🔍 A Past Role……Lingering

Is there a role you’ve played in the past, either by force or by choice, that has exceeded its utility, but continues to linger in the way you see yourself?

For me, it was letting go of wanting to lead in combat and increasingly selective special operations teams. It affected the way I saw myself long after I taken off the cloth of the nation.

Remember - this is not a scolding session. This is a scientific inquiry - you want to find out what from the past still makes you tick but has worn out its usefulness.

🧠 Some Telltale Signs

Our state of mind, especially the subconscious, can leak out in the small ways we behave and carry ourselves. Ask yourself the following questions:

• How’s your posture? Do you hunch to make yourself feel small, or straight with your shoulders back?

• When something peaks your curiosity, do you feel like you need someone’s permission in order to explore it?

• Do you share your ideas when in a group discussion, or keep them to yourself?

• Do you speak clearly, or filled with shy-fueled ughms and maybes?

• Do you take care of your appearance and grooming, taking pride in the way you present yourself to the world?

Again, not a scolding session for yourself. I hunch when I write. There are many times when I keep my opinions to myself. There are days when I just wear exercise clothes everywhere.

This is about being real with yourself about under which circumstances do you behave in certain ways, and most importantly, why you are doing those things.

Some of these behavior patterns are telltale signs that our creation power is suppressed because we are not exerting power over our environment.

🔭 Forecasting Rebellion

Based on where you are in life and your trajectory, what are some roles that society could possibly try to impose on you in the future? How would you stoke your Promethean fire, and rebel against those roles, and establish them on your own terms?

Featured Photo & Affirmation ⚒️

Affirmation for Your Promethean Task

“I am responsible for my own creation”

As we dive deeper into understanding ourselves, let’s remember that we are not alone.

Writing is healing and healing can hurt - reach out to friends and family. They are there for you.

Sending Good Vibes,

Ivan from The Journal Prompt Team

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