I wrote this for me

I miss allowing myself to be real on a piece of paper. Everything had to be a blog, an essay, or a post. Is that why I’m so distressed? Have I traded helping myself for pleasing the audience? 

Was not my writing meant to clarify my mind? I want to write a newspaper article, a poem, a screenplay, or a story. I also need to finish that essay for homework. Enough! I miss writing for me. Something that keeps me humble and motivates me to do more is remembering where I came from. I started writing not because I wanted people to read my writings, not because I wanted to get noticed on social media. No, I started writing because I was going through one of the darkest times in my life, my mind was a mess and writing was the only way to find relief. 

     Why do I obsess over the question, “What do I need to do to be successful?” Why can’t I start asking “What should I do to stay true to who I am?” I guess I avoid that question because I don’t know what to answer. There are so many things I want to be. Christian. Writer(academic, journalist, blogger, poet, songwriter). Musician. Actor. Fitness junkie. Comedian. Life Coach. Friend. Family member. Co-worker. Fellow citizen.

      I hate to feel like I’m playing these roles aimlessly as I struggle to make decisions about my time to meet goals that I struggle to define. All I’ve been taught in English is to write with an audience in mind. Now, call me crazy but I like to talk to myself more than to other people(no offense). I hate second-guessing every word because I’m trying to fulfill everyone’s complicated standards for “acceptable.” I know it sounds selfish but I write for me. And maybe if I learned anything from math class(besides the fact that I suck at math) it’s this: always simplify something to make it understandable. 

    It’s the world right, it's life and other people that make me think so anxiously about becoming me. Or is it me? Am I the one who overcomplicates these thoughts? Perhaps deep down I know exactly what I must do. Maybe I stop myself because I’m over-obsessing about what other people think. Perhaps I forgot that authenticity withers away in the shroud of glamorized popularity. See, writing like this makes me happy and I don’t need to post this(although I probably will), I don’t need to think of this as work for it to be meaningful. 

     Writer Neal Asher says, “For me, the writing process is the same as the reading process. I want to know what happens next.” But maybe I’m afraid to know what happens next. How will I be convicted this time? Thinking is not always a fun endeavor. Maybe that’s why I avoid writing or put so much anxiety into questions like “What will I do with my time?” Perhaps that’s why I obsess over planning while also feeling I don’t plan enough. Deep down I can make a million excuses. The curse of a million hobbies. Polymath syndrome. Call it what you will, it’s no excuse to remain passionless. I am enjoying this writing. I know it’s far from perfect and I know there are a million other things I could do that would benefit my life. But I need to remember why I ever started. I wrote to heal. I wrote to share. Perhaps you don’t give a damn. Well, I don’t care. There is no right or wrong when it comes to expressing the soul. Authentic, loud, and daring is the only way to go.