February 01, 2015

For nearly 3 1/2 years now I’ve been writing a daily blog entry and sending it home to my family to be posted on the internet. Over these last few years in prison I’ve been tweaking my day to day schedule, making improvements, setting new goals, trying my best to make each day as productive and efficient as possible, keeping myself busy, focused on preparations for my future upon release. This daily, fast paced routine not only enables me to best prepare for a successful future, but it also helps ease the difficulties of doing time in prison, making it feel as if time is moving faster. Sitting in the c years ago, waiting to be sentenced to prison for the crime of robbery, my parents guided me to an opportunity for change, introduce Justin Paperny, who I spoke to on the phone from jail. Justin helped open my own eyes, realizing that my life wasn’t over, he helped me see that I still had time to take control of my life, create a stable and successful future for my myself and my children, and he gave me the tools I needed to take control. Justin told me about the Straight A Guide, created by Michael Santos, he sent me all of Michael’s books, after I read all the books, and he gave me assignments and workbooks. Justin instructed me on how to start writing a daily written journal each day, what kinds of topics I should write about, then he told me the importance of documenting my progressive journey through prison and posting it on the web, holding myself accountable, to my family, friends and the society that I will one day rejoin, setting a higher standard for myself. All this time I’ve been writing nearly every single day. In the beginning I had so much to write about, so much was going on in my life, so many emotions that I hadn’t felt in years, so many thoughts about how I was going to maneuver through prison and emerge a better man, a sober man, with a hunger for a better life and future. Today I’m still just as hungry, I’ve set many goals along the way, achieving them and setting new goals, better goals, striving to be better, to reach my optimum potential. I have so much further to go, I haven’t even scratched the surface of my potential, I never will, I’ll just keep setting new goals in order to maintain a gradual betterment and advance through daily life with progression.
Having evaluated many of my recent blog entries and taken some valuable feedback from family and friends, I realize that I’ve been writing some sad, often depressing stuff. I went through a difficult three month patch, in an already difficult place, dealing with a punishment for which I did not deserve. I thought I made all the necessary preparations to secure a stable future, I spent so many years creating my own destruction that I forgot about the tribulations in life that are created by other people, or mere circumstance. I wrote a lot about the suffering I felt, I allowed it to consume me. Life isn’t easy for anyone, we all get thrown a curve ball from time to time, some more than others, but what’s important is how we deal with these situations, grow from them and continue to move forward. I’ve grown a ton over these last few years, I own up to my past decisions and I take responsibility for what I do with each day of my life in here, in preparation for the future. I’ve been writing this blog every day for so long that I often don’t have much to write about, so I just write about what’s on my mind. Often what’s on my mind is worry and concern. I worry about my children, my grandmother’s health, and I’m extremely concerned about the struggles I’m sure to face upon release from prison. Much of this daily concern comes to fruition in my writing, simply because I have nothing else to write about. The monotonous life of prison creates a, well I’m just going to call it a “groundhog day” effect, each day is like the day before. With each day the same, especially as busy as I keep myself in here, I just run out of writing material, so I scribble what’s on my mind. I understand that this isn’t always a good thing, so from now on, what I’m going to do is minimize my blogging to more of a weekly thing, opposed to the daily writing I’ve been doing for so long now. From here on out I’m going to write about the good aspects of my life in prison, no more dwelling on sadness, no more of this “oh woe is me” crap!

Steven Dybvad

 

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