Do you have a dragon telling you you’re not good enough? A dragon that’s a metaphor for depression. A negativity in your mind that drags you down to the dark depths of a self criticism which eats you alive. Do you have demons telling you that you aren’t as good as the others? Demons in the shape of negative thoughts that haunts you, preferably at night preventing your sleep. Telling you that whatever you do someone else has already done it much better than you’ll ever be able to, so why bother?
Day six and I am really starting to question if this was a good idea. Am I really sure I know what I am doing? So, I can count to one thousand? No, I have a program that counts my words. I do write them though. So, I have had a couple of blogs before? They were never particularly interesting and never got that many views.
Am I lying to myself when I say that it doesn’t matter if any one reads this or not? Not that I am entirely sure why I would want anyone to read the things I write about myself. Things I don’t even talk about with my real life friends and family revealed to strangers. And am I really sure that whatever I am doing here is good enough to share with other people? Maybe it should be hidden away where no one can find it? Why am I doing this in public?
An image I just found on Twitter shows how the writer is found in the section where narcissism and self-loathing intersects. Is that where I am? I am very critical of my abilities I don’t like me very much and yes, you can probably say that I loathe myself. At least sometimes. I never thought of myself as narcissistic though, but the thought that anyone would be interested in what I have to say is probably just that. It’s probably a narcissistic idea that anyone would like to read my never ending random ramblings every day. And by narcissism I mean the selfish, self-centered definition, and nothing else.
One of the biggest threats to an aspiring writer is that negative view of self. A self critique that can put an effective halt to any dreams of writing. Craving a perfection that isn’t going to happen. At least not anytime soon. I have found books on the subject so I know I am not the only person in the world who never is completely happy with the end results. Taking on the thousand words a day challenge is one way, for me, to overcome that feeling of not being good enough and just keep writing. When I began the challenge I allowed myself to write whatever came into my mind and it didn’t have to make any sense at all. I lowered my own expectations to nothing, which allowed me to do what I love without feeling the pressure of greatness. Saving me from experiencing that detrimental feeling that loving to do something isn’t enough. You can still fail.
I could, of course continue writing and lock whatever I write in a virtual drawer somewhere instead of sharing it with other people. Why is it so important to share what we write? Why do we still want people to read our stories even when we feel we aren’t good enough to produce a story worth reading? Les Brown said: “You don*t have to be great to get started, but you have to get started to be great.” Arthur Plotnik said: “You write to communicate to others what’s burning inside you…” Maybe that's it.
I view this blog as second challenge, another type of writing challenge, if you like. Both challenges are a way of growing as a writer. Trying to make it work. It won’t be great, but I have started. At the same time I am setting myself up for disappointment when I realize it doesn’t. That it’s not good enough and I failed. The real challenge isn’t the writing itself, but to find out if keep going even when it isn’t great. Or do I give up? How much do I want this?
Can I live without writing? Of course I can. Can I live without blogging? Definitely. There are so many other things I can do and maybe there’s something i can do without failing. So why do I do this? Why do I keep coming back to this one thing that has me question myself and my abilities so much? Is the truth actually that I can’t live without it? Should I just accept the fact that this is what I am supposed to do no matter how much it pains me when I can’t make it work the way I want it to? Keep going even when I fail, keep trying no matter how much my dragon and demons scream at me that I should just give up, that I will never be good enough. Or should I give up? Do I want to live without writing?
I did “give up” on the thousand words a day challenge once before. I stopped writing and I stopped blogging. Not because of my negative thoughts that time, but because I found something else that became more important for a while. I am glad I did, but I also felt very glad when I took it up again, the writing, the challenge and eventually the blogging. It felt like coming home and for a while I didn’t have those doubts about my ability I was just happy to be writing again. Obviously letting in a possible audience makes a huge difference, but it was my choice. And I can choose to lock you out again. Somehow I feel as if that would be a bigger failure though, bigger than the failing that will, no doubt, occur if I keep trying. But failing is a part of the learning process.
You have to keep trying. When you learn to walk you fall down, get back up and keep trying. Somehow you know that this walking thing the other people do is going to be awesome. When you learn to ride a bike, you fall down, get back up and keep pedaling until you’ve got it. Until you can ride around, feeling the wind in your hair, realizing the struggle was worth it. Maybe the other people did walk better than you when you first started, you could still do it. Other people could ride a bike when you were still falling down more often than you could stay on your wheels, but eventually you made it too. Because you didn’t give up.
So what if other people are better at writing and blogging than I am, I can learn how to do it too, if I don’t give up. So what if I’m not good enough right now, I can get better. If I don’t give up.
Yet again I have reached and passed the goal of one thousand. So I will end this post here and continue tomorrow.
If you made it this far….
Many thanks and I wish you a wonderful day!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment