Writing isn’t hard. Compared to other challenges life brings, writing isn’t even remotely difficult.
Writing for a sustained period, however, takes courage. Writing and finishing a project takes bravery. More bravery than most people realize.
Nonwriters have only had a taste of this in school or when maybe writing a poem for their lover when they were younger. Trying their hand at creativity.
Some people never really try it.
It becomes their little secret, or it always was their little secret.
Society does not encourage us to live our authentic pursuits.
Despite the criticism of millennial being self-centered and indulgent snowflakes, it’s still nowhere near the truth that we as a society are actually being empowered to follow our dreams. Encouraged, maybe, but economic demands weigh heavily. These days, we have been forced out of the more comfortable or stable life paths others may have had. Despite making our own path or trying for a corporate life, we do not have any guarantees that things are going to work out for us.
These days, we have the opportunity to make our own way in the world, but there are still no guarantees.
“Being yourself” can become a contrived thing just like anything else.
It’s important for everyone to feel their own way into their path. Your way can not, should not, will not look like anyone else’s way.
Your way will feel wrong.
If you follow your bliss, you will feel criticized, ashamed, alone.
You will also have no real choice.
The rewards will be in the doing. And in the following through.
You yourself will show up for this.
When you have any indication that a pursuit feels alive for you, why not follow that and see what else unfolds for you?
What can matter more than you yourself lighting up and becoming who you really are?
There are no guarantees. It will not always be straightforward.
If you follow one trajectory for many years, then one day you have absolute quiet certainty that there is nothing in it for you anymore, then the only real option is to stay with that uncertainty and wait for what is next for you to be revealed.
The hardest thing for most writers is not the writing itself. It’s the following through.
It’s easy to start a book. It’s harder to finish it.
It means more to finish things than to start them.
Not because we get a gold star somewhere on a report card, but because finishing one layer of the onion presents the next layer to be peeled.
Onward towards the center.