Rule of Life Workshop

Bring to light the ideals you live by — or want to live by — and express them clearly and powerfully in a unique personal statement

Working with a small group of like-minded peers over eight weeks,
you will complete a private, personal statement with many uses.

Sessions to be scheduled in 2022

eight 2-hour sessions without leaving home

write under expert guidance with supportive colleagues

end with a tangible tool supporting your goals

A Rule of Life Is a Road Map

Maps have two uses for the traveler: they tell you where you’ve been, and they help get you where you are going.

For maps to be of any value, though, the first question always has to be: where are you trying to go?

The Life Sentences “Rule of Life” workshop uses words to answer this question about the whole trajectory of a life — your life. Stripping away the ephemera, filtering out the noise, a Rule of Life focuses on the ideals, principles, and guiding values that have shaped your path and that you hope will give your life direction in the future. You will express these ideals, principles, and guiding values in a text.

This workshop is neither a therapy session nor a confessional. You will never have to share the actual content of your Rule of Life. But you will receive encouragement from your instructor and colleagues, be inspired by examples of the many forms a Rule of Life can take, and end up with a useful final document.

This final document can have several uses. If your Rule of Life is primarily retrospective, it can serve as a kind of legacy letter explaining your life to a loved one or to posterity; if it’s prospective, it can be a life-tool to consult frequently as you continue on your journey. And it can be a little of both.

Once you have a Rule of Life, you can review and modify it from time to time, of course. Why not get started now?

I'll be forever grateful to Greg for what I've learned during his course on journaling. He is a passionate reader and a natural teacher. He has a "lead by example" teaching style that motivated me and the entire group. With Greg's help, I was able to re-learn how to love writing, and how to let writing be an integral part of improving my overall well being.

Aaron Curtis

Front-End Developer

Greg creates a calm, creative and supportive atmosphere in the Life Sentences workshop. His approach to journal-writing is inspiring. I really enjoyed the casual, relaxed vibe at each session and hearing my fellow classmates' writings. I came out of the experience having formed a daily habit of writing that I feel like I now can't live without!

Liz Demarest

Communications Professional

This was more than a writing class. It was an inspiring community where listening other people's stories inspired me to write more. Thanks to Greg, I started my journal and now I see writing as part of my life. I also really liked the reflective aspect of this workshop. Greg is a dedicated and experienced writer. Seeing his own journal amazed me.

Yi Ma

Investment Banking Analyst

I couldn't have imagined the improvement this class, and the in-depth journaling habit it has fostered, would make in my thought life. I have much more clarity, and routinely delve deeper than I would otherwise, both on and off the page. It's particularly useful for an artistic life, because you record, explore, and remember ideas that otherwise might have flown away moments after they arrived. It also banishes a relationship with the self where you are that person in your house with whom you avoid eye contact, replacing it with the heady expansion of getting to know someone.

Amy Denninghoff

Professional Artist

Greg creates a wonderful mix of structure and curated serendipity. While learning and practicing a wide variety of journaling techniques and approaches, we also formed a warm and collegial bond with our fellow journalers. Whether you are dedicated to keeping a journal or just want to give it a try for the duration of the course, you will finish with a Swiss Army knife of writing approaches and techniques, which you will undoubtedly use in your personal, academic and/or professional life.

Richard Boly

Former Career Diplomat

Though I do a lot of writing, I haven't journalled regularly for many years. This course re-ignited a neglected practice and brought with it Greg's immense wisdom about the process and what we produced. I am still journaling regularly and find it a linchpin for my day and an opportunity to give growing space to thoughts which would otherwise have disappeared with the sunset.

Jack Peterson

Management Consultant

YOUR HOST AND INSTRUCTOR

Gregory Robison

My own Rule of Life grew organically out of my journal practice. If you keep a diary, or have taken my Circadian Journal workshop, you know how themes and threads can emerge gradually in the pages of your private writing over the years. In my case, I was struck by a line I read somewhere from Roman author Pliny the Elder — nulla dies sine linea (“no day without a line”) and noted it in my journal. Pliny had attributed this saying to Apelles, the most famous painter of the ancient world. This phrase, I later learned, was taken up by European writers in the nineteenth century as a motto about the value of constant practice in literary art. Of course, when Apelles said “line” he had originally meant “brush-stroke.” This misunderstanding seemed to me a happy evolution of the history of this dictum, as I consider myself both a writer and an artist. In both cases, it’s all about the inescapable need for faithful practice. I immediately adopted it as my “rule of life.”

That was about twenty years ago, and nulla dies sine linea is still on my list of values. But I soon realized that it said nothing about what I should write or draw, nor why. My Rule had a tenet, in other words, but it wasn’t satisfyingly comprehensive. For the next few years I therefore explored my values and aspirations to settle eventually on a set of five tenets that I consider my Rule of Life. Why five? Because I can (and do) count them on the fingers of one hand to review them and keep the tenets present to my consciousness.

You’ll do it your way, of course. Mining your own sources and concocting your own mnemonics and format, you will devise a personal road map, a sort of “to be” list that will be unlike anything else you have ever written. I look forward to accompanying you in this work!

YOUR REGISTRATION INCLUDES

Use this time of forced isolation to explore your creativity, hold yourself accountable, and produce some awesome work.

How will this help me get unstuck?

A writer is someone who writes. Whether it’s a novel; a memoir; an op-ed column; a venture idea; a marketing pitch; a sermon; a family history; a collection of poems; a private diary or journal; a play for stage or screen… It’s all writing. Whatever its purpose or final form, it’s all worthwhile.

But like all creative work, it takes discipline, skill, and the right attitude. Producing anything worthwhile in this world is a struggle.

This workshop will dispel the illusions and misconceptions about that struggle — illusions and misconceptions that may have kept you from cultivating your creativity and achieving your goals.