Just a quick one:
It’s been awhile. Too long really. I’ve forgone something I love to do for other things. Other activities. Things that I have prioritized above what I love, external things.
Things that may or may not be easy to achieve, but are easier to pursue.
The notion of achieving them will allow me the room and the comfort to do what I love freely. Living an “if/then” life.
Putting my happiness, which I control, in the hands of that which I do not control.
I love to write. Writing is independent of any other thing in life. Writing can be done at the worst of times, often with good results. It can be done at the best of times. At any time.
Trying to set a time when you can do what you love based on external circumstances is to spit in the face of what you love. It is literally saying, “This thing, that I do not love, is more important than you, something I do love.”
There is no perfect time. Ever. For anything. Except for now. This moment.
Anytime is the right time.
I spoke to someone I love. Someone I respect. I expressed concern over putting writing on the back burner to pursue other things.
She said, “Is your writing going to save someone’s life?”
She was arguing that my other pursuits were more important.
I understood her point and said “no”. My writing isn’t going to save someone. I don’t have the ego to pretend it will.
She, and in turn I, placed these other things higher.
But something dawned on me. It will save a life.
Maybe the most important person.
Myself.
Maybe saving my life is a bit extreme, but it’s what makes me happy. It’s what fills me from the inside and makes the external things disappear into the background.
It’s what I lost and found and for some reason I can so easily lose again.
Allowing ego and insecurity to dictate my time and actions and motivation.
Chasing empty calories. The easy way. The way that creates a gap. A gap between where I am, the present moment and where I think I want to be. Then I live in that gap. The unknown, the emptiness. And I suffer.
I doubt my writing will ever actually save someone. Doesn’t matter.
I love it. Writing makes me better at life. And maybe it’s not writing itself, but more giving myself the gift to do what I love.
Doing it, living it. Not living in a place of if/then. A place I don’t control.
And those things I want. That I chase. That I think I need to be happy. Maybe I will get some of them. By doing what I love now.
Or, and this may be even better, understanding I don’t even need them at all.
Understanding that all I need is already in me.
365 Percent 