Benrik Update

The Benrik challenge has made me realize that follow through is a practiced art. One that I have not practiced enough. I have completed a mere 1 challenge since the start. The challenge was to write a poem and post it in a public place. I wrote a 4 lined simple masterpiece and posted it at the mail center for my apartment.

While all of the challenges in the book have purpose, they are impersonal. I have realized that my follow through needs to be practiced on things that are individual to me.

So today I am going to follow through in writing a draft of a personal essay. A few friends and I just began a writing group in an effort to hold each other accountable for our writing. Ever since I read "I Was Told There'd be Cake" I have wanted to publish a book of personal essays. My weakness, though, is that when I write down the stories they come out as flat as a solo cup of beer left out all night after a party. When I tell the stories verbally, I love them and they come out bubbly and fun. I need to figure out how to make the words on paper become 3-D.

The group is meeting in August and I resolve to have a complete essay done by then. And don't worry, I will share it after I get some peer review.

Challenge Us

Allison and I have decided the guidelines for our Benrik Challenge:

• Takes place between July 1st and September 30th.
• Need to complete 75 tasks between the 2 of us
• We must post weekly to update you on our progress
• Tasks are picked at random
• No repeating a task
• No cheating

Now comes the fun part. Will you join us? We want you guys to participate too, and to share your experiences with the challenge. Any takers? There must be some brave soul willing to try right? Right? I was considering calling out names of followers to challenge you personally, but I'm not that mean. However, I do know that at least 3 of you want to join, and you should.

The Benrik Challenge

Have you ever heard of the Benrik challenge? I hadn't either until about 10 days ago. I follow College Candy on Twitter and they had a great link to an article about it. Apparently there is a book with 365 days worth of random things meant to put you out of your comfort zone and change your life. Sounds corny at first doesn't it?

But think about it, I know I've had at least a moment every day for the past few months where I feel like I'm not doing anything with my life. The feeling that something has to change or I'm going to go insane. You all can't tell me you haven't had these thoughts since graduating.

Enter: The Benrik Challenge. I bought the book from half.com the day I read that article. It just came in and I am browsing through all the things I may be doing soon. Challenges include things like: discretely flip off strangers all day, spend no money day, pretend to be a tourist day, dress in a power suit and go to lunch alone at a fancy restaurant - introduce yourself to diners as the owner. All of these sound really entertaining to complete.

Allison bought the book as well and we are going to do the challenge together. We haven't decided entirely how we are going to fashion it yet, though. 365 days is a long time and we want to shorten it a bit. We were thinking of having to complete 75 of the tasks by October 1st. What do you think?