Hello and thank you for reading my first ever blog post! I want this reading session to be about you, so hopefully my message resonates with the audience. A quick Google search led me to believe that blog posts are generally longer than a thousand words. I don’t typically read blog posts, but I guess they offer the right amount of content and pacing for people wanting something more substantial than a social media post while not diving too much into detail. Please let me know if this sounds correct to you, but for this post I will proceed accordingly.
My message is simple. Take the time to do some work that connects with you. To those of you who do that for a living or already have a solid grasp on time management, good job! Keep doing that. My tips might be of further service to you. To any readers who feel that they don’t connect with their work as much as they would like to, I would like for you to at least recognize the benefits of doing so. Maybe there will come a time when you’ll be able to engage in personalized work.
There's nothing wrong with occasionally doing something special for yourself. With a personal project or hobby, you can treat yourself and be productive at the same time. For example, I'm a cartographer who takes the time to make maps for myself. Usually, I make these personal maps about myself. I am not suggesting that you have to do something about you. What I am recommending is that you do something for your own enjoyment. In my case, that often involves making something about myself.
To clarify, you could do something about yourself, although you might want to do something specifically for someone else.
I'm about to give you an example of a project that I did for myself. I will try my best to illustrate how I was productive and indulgent at the same time. As I just stated, many of my personal endeavors are about me. This time was no different. Simply put, I made a map about the places where I've lived.
Doing something about yourself has several practical benefits. I personally like doing things that contextualize my life in time and space. That helps me meditate on my past, present, and future. When I have a polished, condensed, and entertaining map to look at, it is easier to see where I have been and what I have done. It is a conduit for self-reflection. It is a way to know myself better. I believe that studying your life events in spatiotemporal contexts are a key part in knowing yourself.
I like to keep track of events and dates in my life. I contemplate the different narratives that I can tell others using the details of my life events. I encourage you to do the same. Exact dates and events add substance to your backstory and can draw people in during conversations. People might sense openness or trust from you when you share exact dates with them. It’s temporal detail. In fact, there are times when people specifically ask you for temporal detail. You might pique someone's curiosity by briefly mentioning one of your accomplishments or one of your old jobs. If they want to know more, they might ask you one of the following questions.
“When did you do that?”
“Really!? When did you rock climb at Arches National Park?”
In such cases, you could provide your friend with some temporal detail to satisfy their curiosity. This also lets them know that you are willing to open up to some extent.
I also advocate for detailed record keeping because it informs goal-setting. It is easier to know what you can improve on when you keep track of how you spend your time. For example, I accomplished way more in 2019 than in 2018 because I spent more time working and gaining real-world experience in 2019. I can point to work and college and exercise day after day in my summer 2019 diary entries. In the summer of 2018, I also exercised daily, but I didn’t take summer classes and only worked for 10 days. The reason for my fulfilling summer was not debatable. The difference between 2018 and 2019 was the amount of work I did. Now I use 2019 as a baseline to build and grow from. It’s analogous to the advantage one has when they sit down to make financial goals and already have previous years’ income and expenses on hand.
Another thing I like to keep track of is personal geography. Everyone is familiar with personal geography even if they aren’t aware of the associated jargon and taxonomy. If you’re interested in what the professionals have to say, then you will be glad to know that there is a lot of material out there on this topic. As a geographer, I work with people who focus on personal geography. That is not my focus, but I like to indulge in it sometimes as you can see from my map.
It is a visual depiction of the places where I’ve lived and some of the places that they are connected to. Making this map was my way of doing a bit of cartography while keeping track of my life events, which already made it a worthwhile task. I do not wish to elaborate on why I picked some types of connections over others. Just know that maps, like other methods of storytelling and communication, have their own versions of simplification.
Briefly, I do want to give an explanation for the catch-all category called “Special Case Terminal”. I wanted to include railroads on my map, but I didn’t use the endpoints of named railroad segments as terminals. Wherever there wasn’t a clear end to the trackage, I symbolized that with a single-headed arrow. I prioritized the essence of connectivity in this case. In the case of I-39, which ends in Normal, IL, I didn’t want to give the impression that it ended north of the BNSF Metra line (formerly CB & Q). So I prioritized spatiality over neat categorization and gave that a single-headed arrow as well. Hence, special cases.
Now I am going to give another example of why this project was worth my time. I always learn something new when I make maps, and this time was no exception. If you look in the bottom left corner of the map, you will notice that the Norfolk Southern railroad coming out of Streator, IL ends with an “X”. That’s because trains used to cross the Illinois River there until a fatal accident involving an oil-carrying barge led to its decommission. There is even a short entry about it in the December 18, 1964 edition of the New York Times, the day after it happened. I never knew that.
Now I have a map about myself. I can show my friends and family a thing or two about myself that they might not have previously known.
I have many critiques about the places where I’ve lived, but I’m also very proud of them, which probably falls under Yi-Fu Tuan’s concept of topophilia. I definitely wanted to give these places some special attention, which is why I showcased them on my map.
Madison is a beautiful state capital with a high standard of living and four cool lakes. The four lakes even inspired the indigenous Ho-Chunk people to call the area Dejope.
For better or for worse, the Chicago Portage, which I’m going to claim for Lyons, has made a much larger impact on the course of American history than Portage, WI or Portage, IN. Too proud? Maybe. For a weird reason? Not at all.
Clyde Tombaugh, the man who discovered Pluto, was born in Streator. Pluto was one of our first insights into the Kuiper Belt and trans-Neptunian objects, so don’t tell me Pluto isn’t important.
Then there’s Berwyn, the place I’m most proud of. It’s nothing spectacular, but it is a truly unique place. It has been the most densely populated municipality in Illinois for several years now, and has also been called the greenest suburb. I can go on, but I will not.
What are you going to do? You might be fortunate enough to gain some free time like I did. That’s the perfect time to segue into a personal project. You could do something that builds your pride and helps you recognize your uniqueness. This could be the endeavor that puts things into perspective, leading you to new pastimes and spurring you to make new goals. You might want to manifest aspects of your personality that others usually don’t see.
A reasonable undertaking that connects with your interests is worth pursuing. There is pleasure in it. You will learn about yourself and potentially start some novel discussions. It can be as big or as small as you want it to be. This map took me a couple of days to make and still feels highly rewarding. If you’re a social person, make it a group activity. Shared experiences are a favorite for projects like slide shows and montages.
If you decide to partake in personalized work, I wish you the best and I hope you have fun doing it! I appreciate your time and attention.
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