New Beginnings.

So as many of you guys know (if you're coming from my Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, that is) that I've been trying to start this project that I've labeled as "#soon". Well this is it! Welcome! This is my blog and I'm starting this and I'm not sure how far I'll get, but this is what I have so far. Obviously I'll keep my social media feeds updated and whatnot with new posts, but I hope you'll subscribe and find meaning through my words.

Mostly throughout this particular post you'll find out why I wanted to do this, a little bit about me, and stuff sort of like that. It won't be particularly inviting in terms of what the blog will mostly be about, but it will give you some insight into the author of the blog and I think new projects like these require new beginnings, hence the name of this post. (Many of you know who I am, some of you even on a pretty deep level already, but I sort of want to equalize your mindset of the blog with this post and hopefully set the pace of it as well.) So, first, let's set the bounds for this project.

My hope for this blog is to have a new post out either every Saturday or every other Saturday. I know it's good to be consistent, but I believe that quality is better than quantity, so I'd rather have my readers wait two weeks for an excellent post rather than getting a crappy post every week. I'll also let you know the date of the next post along with the topic. I would very much like to be one of those people who has three or four posts ready in advance, but sometimes life gets a little hectic, so we'll see where that takes me. This blog will be pretty personal and will reveal possibly more than a few of my vulnerabilities, but I'm really okay with that. (I'll delve more into that in a coming attraction.) A lot of my beliefs and morals will be featured in the posts throughout the whole of this blog and I hope you either find truth in what I say or it clashes with your beliefs so much so that we can have a discussion that I can reveal in a future post! Language will be kept at a "PG" level on most cases, but I can't promise that these blog posts will be exceptionally appropriate all the time.

The main focus of this blog is me, of course. I like myself a lot. I talk a lot. I think about billions of things at a time for most of my waking hours. I like sharing myself a lot. I think this will be an extremely healthy outlet for the things that I think about and want to share, I think it will be a discussion between me and my friends and family and I'm extremely excited to share more than I ever have before! But more than that, more than this blog just being about me, it's about finding myself in a sea of chaos, it's about connecting with who I truly am and who I truly want to be in the future. I will share random thoughts of mine; I will share songs, photos, frustrations, praises, and memories; I will share me and I really hope that me resonates really well with you.

So that's the what, where, and when of this whole blog business. I guess I haven't really touched upon the why or who. (Expect interpolation like this throughout my posts because it helps me collect my train of thought.)

Why?
There's no exceptional reason as to why I thought I could do this. I haven't been told by my friends and family particularly often that I'm "wise beyond my years" and should "share my story with everyone." I guess I kind of just want to... It'll be nice knowing that people want to read what I have to say after a pace starts to build up, but how can I be sure that I'm interesting enough? I'm not really too sure about that, but I am sure that what I have to say is important to read to some people in some particular time with a particular post and others at another time with another particular post. I guess the main reason why is because I like to share who I am and I like to do it uniquely. A lot of people in my generation are very fixed on YouTube vlogs or Tumblr, not really Blogger, which I find to be extremely useful for this sort of thing. So yeah. Sharing who I am; sharing what makes me me and finding who the perfect Jamal Davis Neal, Jr. is along with other people finding themselves as well.

So. Who is Jamal Davis Neal, Jr.?
Well for this part of the post I'm just going to copy & paste my Facebook "About Me" here, which some of you have seen earlier this week, because I feel like it's the best written description of who I am as person.

"Hey! My name is Jamal Davis Neal, Jr. Welcome to my Facebook and get prepared for the longest “About Me” section ever. Trust me, I promise you that it’s worth the read.

R.I.P. Daddy, I love you so much!

12/19/72-12/29/10

Four Years

First off, love your family. That’s the most important thing that I can say. You don’t know how blessed you are to have them until they’re gone.

I give everyone a chance to love me for who I am and I try my best to love people for who they are. Abusing that chance won’t make me think very high for you and I’m extremely cautious when it comes to the people I hold close to my heart.

So a little bit about me! I’ve lived in a little town in Southeastern, Connecticut known as Groton (the Submarine Capital of the World) for all my life!

I am a 17 Year Old First Year at the University of Vermont and I’m studying Neuroscience as well as fulfilling the Pre-Med requirements. I’m a pretty organized person and keep a wide-array of to-do lists and reminders and calendars to keep myself stable. I hope to one day become a Neurosurgeon and am extremely fascinated with the brain and can’t wait to learn more and more about it and how it works.

One of the biggest things that is central to my identity is my spirituality. I’m a practicing American Baptist and I’m pretty liberal with my interpretation of the Bible, and my church in little ol’ Mystic, CT raised me with a strong central core of loving others and treating people right.

Another thing that is super important to me is music. I’ve been involved in multitudes of musical programs and festivities growing up and throughout high school and I’m also super obsessed with Adele, Pentatonix, and Beyoncé. I’ve always found a lot of different varieties of music to be really good and I hope throughout college that I get a chance to delve more into that.

I’m a super big user of social-media. I use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat quite frequently and I actually have a blog as well. It’s called My Search for a Purpose and you can find it at this link: [http://existwithmeaning-jdnj.blogspot.com/]

I’m also a frequent user of Skype, because I have quite a bit of good friends from back home that I love keeping in contact with.

My favorite shows that are currently on air include Grey’s Anatomy, American Dad!, Bob’s Burgers, Archer, and Last Man on Earth as well as many others on and off-air!

Going to school in Burlington, Vermont has been super great so far and I’m really glad that I chose this school as my collegiate home. I’m extremely comfortable here, I’m learning a whole lot, and I’ve made some pretty cool friends including my roommate!

After college I think I plan to live on the East Coast either after or before exploring the world with my soulmate. The East Coast is where I was born, raised, and (sort of, not really) where I’m attending college. I can’t imagine calling another place home.

The last really important thing about me are the goals I love to set for myself. One of them includes letting go and letting God because I still rely too much on my own instinct.

The next is doing super well in school this year as well as for the rest of my collegiate years! The end of high school wasn’t too great for me and that was super rough for me. After that it is to continue on my weight loss journey. I need to become a healthier person, physically, by working out, and I’m super excited to be starting to work out here at UVM once I get myself perfectly acclimated academically!

The last and most important goal for myself is to be happy and having some sense of accomplishment as I continue on my journey through life. My blog is going to heavily rely on this journey and finding where I belong in life and I’m really excited to share that with people that I associate myself with. It’s also to maybe give people some advice along the line, hopefully. I’m also super passionate about the things that I believe in so there will be a ton of opinions and personal morals interwoven in this blog. One part of my journey is finding love. I’ve never had a super serious relationship with a girl yet and I would like to find one while I’m here at college, but that’s not as big of a priority as learning to completely and truly love myself and my whole being for who I truly am.

There are times where my happiness wavers, like most people, or my loyalty to the ones I love isn’t 100%. That has happened because of self-doubt or no trust in myself and I’ve lost some people that I’ve known as my best friends. Most of those people have changed, though, for better or for worse, and our lives aren’t compatible anymore, which is okay. I’m finding my way through happiness and they’re finding theirs. I respect that. The people that have remained by my side now though, some of them are people that I believe will be with me for the rest of my life. They know who they are. They are my anchors and I couldn’t be more thankful for and to them as a blessing from God. Thank you for being my rocks.

A really important thing about finding happiness is by being a better person in general, and that’s by working on my flaws. I don’t think enough people put enough focus on this in their lives, and it’s a constant reminder that I have to give myself every day. I try to be conscious about this, mainly with what comes out of my mouth. (I’ve been known for my sass.)

Another flaw is when I don’t openly express that I’m in a bad mood, or generally, I try not to explain why because I constantly try to be the leader of groups and have a positive outlook on life and everything so that I can encourage the people around me to do the same; I try to let people rely on my enthusiasm and optimism. However, if I don’t think that the most optimistic thing is the most realistic, most truthful, or most honest ideal, then I voice my opinion on it and let people know what I believe to be true.

Lastly, I’m constantly afraid of making mistakes, whether it applies to relationships with friends or with family, I’m always scared to lose people because of something that I’ve done. It’s something that I’ve been working on as I try to love myself more and more each day, and I’m proud to say that my obsession over details is waning out to more of an appreciation of the big picture.

That’s the long version of the briefest summary of myself that I could give you right at the moment. Please, please join me for my pursuit of happiness by checking out my blog My Search for a Purpose at http://existwithmeaning-jdnj.blogspot.com/

But yeah… If you’re just a random creeper, or one of my closest friends, you’ve witnessed a sneak peak of what it is to be me, Jamal Davis Neal, Jr.

Thank you for taking the time to read."

Again, welcome to my blog and I hope you enjoy it!

Next Post: "Love Yourself!"

When?: Saturday, November 7, 2015.