15 minutes a day, for 100 days, I'm going to write something and share it.
For years I’ve talked about wanting to write more often, to improve my writing skills and find what I’m meant to say. But the go-go-go busy pace of life that I’ve fallen into has made it difficult to find the time and make it happen.
Oh, who am I kidding? We’re all busy. None of us have extra time. If I’m honest with myself, and with you, the real reason I haven’t written consistently is because it’s easier to hide behind “busy” than to risk failing.
What if I have nothing to say?
What if I have too much to say?
What if I hurt people?
What if it’s meaningless?
Those questions sit here with me, scratching and tapping at the back of my head as I scratch and tap at the keyboard. “stop. Stop. STOP!” they say, “What if you waste your time? What if you waste your life?”
Well, fear, what if?
What if I waste my life listening to you, stuffing down that thing inside me that says “write. Write. WRITE! You have something important to say!” What if I spend so much energy trying to avoid the pain of failure that I end up missing the very reason that I am made?
It feels scary to say “I’m going to write at least 15 minutes a day, and I’m going to just put it out there in the world and let anyone read it.” (Ya’ll be gentle, ok?) I know that somehow writing is a part of the way God wired me to engage with the world, to find what’s real and true and right and good and share it. To wrestle reality into words and put them on the page…it helps me to see, it helps me to hear, it helps me to speak. I have a story to tell, I have a song to sing. God’s given me a voice, so I’m going to learn to use it.
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| Image: http://allididwaslisten.blogspot.com/2011/10/things-i-wonder.html |
It’s risky, this business of sharing life with each other and being our real selves, not just some made-up façade. When we hoard the things that we hold most valuable, when we resist being vulnerable, we think we are protecting ourselves from loss. Avoiding risk feels safe. But as a good friend once said, “Life is risk. Better make the risk count.”
I hope and pray that this writing counts; that by the end of the summer I will have spent 1500 minutes learning, practicing, and growing in a way that matters. If nothing else, I will learn something.
So, what is the risk you need to take? What’s that thing you keep saying you want to do “someday”, but you’ve been too busy, too afraid, too distracted to actually start doing? Want to jump in and #dosummer2015 with us? It's not just for writing. It's for anything. What do you need to do?
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