Tag Archives: hope

I write…

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WritingI write. I write because no one cares to listen to what say. I write to purge the angst from my soul, to liberate myself from the weight that threatens to burden me beyond endurance. I write because I have something to say, a piece of me that I want to share. I write because I must.

I wish I could say that I don’t care if anyone reads what I write, but that would be a lie. I want to be read, I want for people to glimpse into that part of me, the part that I keep hidden, protected from a cold, uncaring world. I have this light that I want shone across the great expanse, but people shun it, closing their own windows, leaving me wondering what the point of this futility is.

I write, but I don’t know why I bother. To share with everyone only to be ignored is the worst rejection from a lifetime of rejection. I suppose it’s my curse to bear, and I try to bear it stoically, but sometimes the pain bursts from me unawares, before I even have a chance to shore up my defenses. Then I feel ashamed of my own weakness, but that’s the price of being human, of needing someone to accept up for who we are.

I’m a writer, and I’m a bag of paradoxes and contradictions. I’m flippant and sarcastic, but also earnest and sincere. I’m hopeful and optimistic, but broken down by experience to the point where only my pessimism is allowed to show. I want to be liked, but I’m afraid of putting myself out there, to be rejected and hated. I want to love, but love comes with the inherent risk of being brokenhearted, and I don’t know if I can survive another heartbreak.

So I hide behind my keyboard, exploring the human condition from which I separate myself. I explore love and hate, hope and despair, life and death, from the safe, ignoble distance of my imagination, but at what cost? Have I lost something of my humanity?

I write, but am I worth reading. I wonder but have no answer, and who is there who has one for me, and would I listen even if there were?

Needs

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I had planned on getting an early start today. My schedule at work had me working from 5:45 this morning until 2:45 this afternoon. By 4:00, I should have been here at home, manuscript beside me while I imputed the corrections into my laptop. My plans never seem to pan out. Damn you!

I ended up working a few hours late, having dinner with a friend, and not getting home until 8:00. Still plenty of time to get some work in on my writing, but instead I zoned out a bit, the exhaustion from a long day forcing me to shut my eyes for a bit. I don’t work tomorrow, so I’m planning on staying up a little longer and getting some editing done. I also plan on hitting it hard tomorrow. I wonder if my plan will happen.

I’m not complaining about my day. It was worth it, but today made me think about my future. Actually, I’ve been thinking about it off and on for the past several days. I’ll be 39 years old next week. I have lets say 25 to 30 years left of a working career. Do I want to be where I am no for the next 30 years? Is retail the place I want to be?

The answer is a resounding no. I don’t like what I’m doing. There’s no job security, no job satisfaction. I’m tearing my body down for an impersonal corporation that doesn’t care about me. It’s only concern is to make money for itself, and for its shareholders. Though I do believe in a free market society, I have to be frank and say that my needs are not being met.

Which brings me to consider what my needs are. My basic needs are being met. What I’m missing, and what I want and need the most is my independence. That need requires a certain level of financial security, which I don’t have. More than that, what I really need is something that fulfills me. I may need a job to pay the bills, but what of me? What do I need of my life to truly live?

Love and family? Yes. A career I enjoy? Certainly. The ability to travel and learn? Absolutely! The one thing I want out of life is to communicate my thoughts. Life is too short. I want to make an impression on the world, that though life is frail and it must end, there are things about me that mattered. I want to know that I had a positive impact on someone’s life.

So I write. That is what I need to live. I read and I learn so that I can turn around and put into words the thoughts and emotions that I have. I have things to say and I want to do the best I can to say them in a thought-provoking manner. I don’t want to die without saying what I need to say. I want to live on.

I didn’t mean to go so dark. There is no impending death on the horizon, or at least I hope not! I’m looking to the future and I can see myself stuck doing what I’m doing now. That’s easy to see. It’s what I fear the most. What I can’t see is the path obscured by doubt and the unknown. It scares me, but it calls to me because that’s the path that leads to immortality.

What will that take? It’ll take a level of dedication to my dream that will test the limits of my endurance. I’ll have to sacrifice and struggle to go where I want to go. I have to be free to fail, and failure is a familiar foe. I also have to be willing to find any measure of success.

As I continue to work on my writing, that’s the thought that motivates and tortures me. I have to stop dreaming the dream. It’s time to start realizing that same dream with my labor. I’ve already started down that path. Starting is not the issue. What trips me up is pushing myself until I reach the goal line. Starting is easy. I’m just unsure how to find the end. I could use a mentor and a coach in my life to help me along.

 

This is the year….

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This is the year…

…that I stop procrastinating,
…that I stop making excuses,
…that I stop allowing my insecurities dictate my course,
…that I accomplish my life’s ambition,
…that I start anew and let go of that which holds me back.

This is the year it all comes together. New year, new beginnings. I hope you all have a wonderful 2015.

Success or failure: What do I choose?

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I’ll never make it as a writer…

Quill and Ink

Quill and Ink (Photo credit: cgsheldon)

I can hear the voices clearly sometimes. You’re not good enough. No one will ever want to read your stuff. Why do you even try? The voices are jerks. I hate the voices in my head.

The voices are my own insecurities and doubts. Fear keeps me from doing what I should be doing to get ahead. The thought of another JOB makes me want to curl up into a fetal position and cry. I don’t want to work for the man. I don’t want to waste my life making another rich while I wear myself out. I don’t want that.

And neither does anyone else.

I see the dead look in people’s eyes as they trudge through the muck that is their everyday existence, and I can see the my own blank stare reflected back to me. Clock in, work, clock out, and then try to salvage at least a little bit of our day for ourselves, and our family and friends. We slave to break even, if we’re lucky. We toil just to put a roof over our heads and food to eat. We break our bodies only to fall further behind in life.

It’s happening. Look at the news. Look at the discontent among the laborers. Wages are stagnant, there is no real job growth, and hours are getting cut. The economy isn’t growing because the wealthy have stolen this country’s wealth and are hoarding it for themselves all the while wondering why they aren’t making anymore money.

I finally got a job and I’m off this week. I don’t go back until next week and only for 14 hours. The following week is about the same, but they scheduled me for a day I’m in class. Sorry, but I’m not jeopardizing my education for a go-nowhere-job where they don’t even care enough to get my schedule right. I did that once and I spent over a decade being miserable.

I’m not saying this to trash the labor force. I’m saying this to trash the employers, which is dangerous for me as I’m in the market to find a real full-time position somewhere. I am beginning the transition from student to employee all over again, and yes it scares the hell out of me.

What can I do?

Keyboard

Keyboard (Photo credit: Quinn deEskimo)

My only recourse is to use the only talent available to me and try to write for a living. Right out of the proverbial gate I’m met with the reality that most writers don’t make a living as writers. I wonder; how many aspiring writers are out there right now, toiling away on their computers, typewriters, and even notepads and pens, trying to write the next big thing? I know I am. I’m one of the invisible group, hoping to be taking out of obscurity and made famous for doing what I love.

Hell, here I am writing for free for myself, just to have an outlet to express my thoughts. I have a very limited readership, and I’m okay with that. Although I do want to grow my audience, my main objective is to write for writing’s sake. I write in order to discover what I believe, to put it into words, in a logical manner, that I can defend if I have to. I write in order to practice putting my thoughts down onto paper, or in this case onto the web. I write in order to learn.

You are my teachers and my evaluators. You who have taken the time to read my thoughts have become my greatest assets. I take my blog stats very seriously, and I take my Likes as a positive sign that I did a decent job. When no one reads my post, I feel that I did a poor job and that I need to do better.

My main problem is that I haven’t been as diligent as I should. I haven’t committed myself to write everyday like a writer ought to write. Be it trash or a masterpiece, without taking the time to sit down and actively engage in this craft, I will end up as a dreamer who wants the stars but remains content to watch them from afar.

But I’m not content. I’m tired of laying on the meadows at night, looking up without trying to reach out for those distant points of light. I’m tired of dreaming the dream that I yearn for, but refuse to pursue. I’m tired of hearing that I can do it, that I have the talent, “if only you’d go for it.” I will go for it. You’ll see.

In the meantime I will trudge along on this merry road, working for the marketplace, selling myself for a meager wage. It’s a sacrifice I have to pay, that I’m willing to pay, but this time I do so with my eyes open, with a plan for the future and a hope that I can escape.

We all have our dreams, and mine is to be financially independent, as much as is possible. If I have to work to enrich some man’s coffers, why shouldn’t that man be me? If I have to wear myself out, shouldn’t it be for my own benefit? In the process, if I am successful, I will end up helping others make money.

I just have to remember this: I need to sit down and write. Success or failure rests solely on my ability to set aside some time to write. Unless I sit down and get serious, I’ve already failed. I don’t want to fail, not this time and not with this. Failure is always an option, but success only becomes a possibility if I not only try but I do.