The idea behind “expanding your life”

When we were told we had to create a blog for my word-of-mouth communications class, my first thought was what on earth am I going to write about? I scanned my brain for a few days and continuously put the assignment on the back burner until the syllabus said it absolutely had to be up-and-running. Lost in my own boredom, I began perusing other blogs on the internet to see what kinds of things other people wrote about. I soon realized that anyone can make a blog about anything.

After much thought on writing about the ordinary details of my daily life, I began wondering if I couldn’t use this blog for something more worthwhile. Surely my own boredom at the moment could be cured by having something, anything to write about. Given that I someday dream of becoming an author, the idea of practicing my writing in a public forum should be somewhat appealing. However, the more I thought about blogging and what I should say, the more frustrated and nervous I became that I didn’t have anything to say. Nothing to say at all. How depressing is that? There wasn’t one single aspect of my life or interest that I could think of that would be worthwhile to write about. So I began thinking. If I feel like my life has nothing interesting or exciting in it at the moment, why not create interesting or exciting things to write about?

My goal is to seek out one completely new experience each week and then write about it on this blog. By a new experience I mean something that I would never normally do. It could mean eating out at a restaurant I’ve never been to, skydiving, volunteering, etc. I haven’t decided what new things I am going to try. I am thinking of it as sort of an “experiment” with myself. Will trying new things make me feel more worthwhile? Will I find things out about myself? Each week I will have to try something I have always been afraid to do or have put off. It is in this sense that I will be “expanding my life.” I want to feel more dimensional in a world that can easily become focused solely on school and going out. There has to be something more out there and I intend to find it. I encourage others to try this experiment as well and see where it leads us at the end of these fifteen weeks of class.