I keep a Journal.  I have for many many years.  My written Journal begins in the Autumn of 1973.  My audio recorded Journal (now incorporated into the written) began Christmas Day 1972.

By Christmas 1973, I had begun writing, and wrote my first "book," In Search of the Past, a science fiction featuring how I viewed life as a teen in those days mixed with some Planet of the Apes.  By this time I had several tape recordings and learned how to record my favorite things.  All of my earliest recordings are still extant today.  They do take you back to the land of the early 1970s as they occurred.

 Let's skip through the decades.  Growth was slow.  In a nutshell:

Been in and out of a private school.  Got caught up in the psychedelic lifestyle and lived most of this time as a "hippie."  

In 1979, went to college in an environmental school in the tiny village of Unity, Maine.  Settled there for over a decade living in the woods.  I became a member of the Church of Christ and was baptized.

All of the earliest part of my written Journal was destroyed by fire but much of it I was able to restore.  It will never be the same again.  1982.

 In the late 1980s I was coaxed out of the woods by a preacher who took me in.  This led to my move to Florida College where I began to learn how to live properly in the city.  I had a LOT of growing up to do!

1993 I got my first computer.  At that time the world was still in the BBS mode and I watched with awe as a friend's friend in the Knoxville TN area was working at his workstation maintaining (or contributing) to his favorite BBS.  He might have been a sysop (today known as a moderator.)

1995.  The WWW is born.

1996.  My brother and his wife get a divorce over this thing called an "e-mail." (She snooped into his computer and found he was having an affair - Ooops!)

1997.  I try to get AOL on my 386 computer.  The only thing I can use with this out-dated system is the oldest version of AOL software.  By this time AOL was already into its third or fourth version.  I can't use any of the features, including browsing, but I can use e-mail.  That was WOW! to me.  I didn't know what I was missing!  I had forgotten about CompuServ on my sister's computer from the prior year.  At that time there were not very many websites and they were very primitive.  Of course, I didn't know that then.

2004 was a turning point in my life.  How I used the Internet changed tremendously...it was no longer just games and surfing the net.  I ran into the Internet marketing opportunities and personal development/motivation scene.

By Christmastime 2004 I had begun experimenting with building web pages using the famous Mozilla Suite.  I still have the very primitive results on this computer...untouched since.

On Christmas Eve, 2007 I build the prototype of the very first web development program - Alternative Health Solutions MD.com is born!  It was built using that antequated web page editor.

By the first of the new year, it was online.  It was horrible but I was very excited!

The next two years were spent playing around with these old concepts.

On or around November 29, 2008, I run into a website by Ryan Moran.  On this date I send an inquiry to Wealthy Affiliate University because I'm impressed with the fact that there is free web hosting there.

On December 1, 2008, I get a response back from WA Support with some details. All the rest of the information I had on this and Ryan Moran would be lost in a hard drive failure yet to come...

At this time I've tangled up with Ross Goldberg and about the middle of the month, join an online Seminar of sorts and had become a member of the ListBuilding Club - a different program put out by Tellman Knudson.  I had been subscriber of Knudson since 2004.  These give me the groundwork of Internet Marketing but I never did much with them.  I had a run-in with the owner of the Seminar, Ross Goldberg, who slammed his door in my face.  That was an awful experience!

Where was I last year at this very time?

I have a WordPress blog by this time, but of course, it's doing nothing.  I didn't set it up.  Someone else had set it up for me.  All the articles on it were totally rubbish and not one bit of SEO, keyword density, nada!  This website has been stripped and sitting idle right now.

In a job I hated.  I could see no light at the end of the tunnel.  I was excited about Internet marketing but I had no idea what I was doing.

By this time I had learned CSS and rebuilt that first website...at the time, in its third version.

December 22, 2009 I had an awful hard drive failure!  I lost most of my data! 

December 23, 2009 Nobody would know the meaning of "Download Hell" like I did trying to restore thousands of purchased music files from MP3.com with a faulty wireless connection!  I found out very quickly the meaning of "cyclic reduncancy failure" as just about half of my CD backups failed!  If the downloads were hell, data retrieval from my backup sources were anathama!  This whole experience was straight from the Cybernetic Divine Comedy!Had no idea how to do keywords properly.  I knew nothing, absolutely nothing about the numbers.  I was just picking out keywords spontaneously.  It took me over two months to restore about 95% of my lost data using data recovery techniques and almost continuous downloading to a really crappy computer.

December 24, 2009 Marcus sends an e-mail I thought was very corny and an great insult to intelligence.  It hit a pet peeve I had now that I had become aware of the kind of hype that is so common on the Internet...and I wrongfully associated his broadcast as one of these.  This very e-mail would strike a friendship and usher me into the Wealthy Affiliate Membership.

On Christmas day, last year, yes on this very day I had responded to an e-mail I thought was an insult to intelligence...to Marcus.  I blasted him with my reply.  It was not nice.

December 26, 2009 Marcus' response is one of great apology and that he would remove me from his e-mail list.  Mentioned a new Guide he was putting out but that we were parting company.

December 27, 2009 The e-mail hit my heart!  I returned with an apology for having written such an awful letter to him and elaborated on why I wrote it.  His response was one of understanding and that our ties would not be closed.  He resubscribed me and a friendship had begun!

Learning Accelerates off the Chart in 2010!

On January 1, 2010 I join Wealthy Affiliate University.  I do very little with it at first but I do get into PotPieGirl's tutorials on Squidoo.  It was perhaps the very first thing I did here.

On February 22, 2010 I get canned from my job.  From this time on, I get more education about marketing on the Internet and affiliate marketing than I ever thought possible!

April 19th 2010, I leave my deteriorating living conditions because I can no longer pay the rent.  I was just very happy I was released from my employment prison, but I had a few things to learn about Internet marketing...and learned them the hard way!

It doesn't come overnight.

It's not as easy as those marketing gurus purport!

My six month trip here to Ohio was filled with new knowledge about Internet marketing!  The first thing I learned about it was that I was doing keywords all wrong!  I learned about the numbers.

All my resources ran out in the middle of my trip here.  So was the patience of the family of my host at me being here sitting at a computer all day, every day. Just before the price increase, I manage to make one sale at WA. The money remains in my account here to this day.

September  comes along and the WAClubs debut.  I'm amongst the first group to get in on it.  My education was moving along at an exponential rate...but now it's exponential on turbo!

In one month's time I built an entire campaign under the leadership of Marcus.  I can't put words to the incredible growth I've gotten from this excursion!

The WA Article Club actually did three things for me...

1. Got up that WA campaign
2. Gave me some badly needed moral support and the opportunity to be an asset to a community like never before
3. Revealed some serious weaknesses I have which I am now addressing

My Future and What's Next...

One of the first things I found out about this trip to Ohio was that I had grown in my own demeanor.  I was once at home with my host as it existed in Florida.  But now, I've found that my own growth in personal development has put a wedge between my friend here and myself.

No, there's no animosity between us, just that he has the victim mentality.  I had to throw that off in my own life.  He believes that life just happens...and so does the future.  No.  It doesn't.  You make life happen...and you do not enter the future...you create it.

I have a blueprint to go back to Florida with.  I have positive people down there I can be with.  There's way too much negativity I've walked into here.

I will have to find a job...but with what I've learned from WA, I now know what's involved.  It's no longer a gray cloud or a mysterious black box!

This has been my Christmas Story.  I've been greatly blessed and going through growing pains now.  I'm building my future now in the remaining years of my life...and Wealthy Affiliate is part of my future! 

This was a story about me.  It's my success story so far.  What's yours?  What were you doing at this time last year and have you made improvements.  Hopefully everyone who reads this has.  One thing I noticed was that most everything I did was in small steps.  Over the last 365 days, I can see I've moved a mountain!

Will you move your mountain...or another mountain between now and next year at this time?  Make very second count?  Get the most out of your time and prioritize everything?  Stay motivated and do not procrastinate?

No, I've not not made much in the line of income, but I have a whole lot more than I had at this time last year...more, I think, than the rest of my entire life outside of this last year...together!  That's Wealthy Affiliate and the wonderful Membership that inhabits it!  The rest is desire and determination!