Anyone who’s set a goal to engage in a discipline over the long haul knows how difficult it is to set yourself on a path and stick to that path religiously for a long time. I’m talking years. And so it goes with writing. Writing is important. I don’t care why a person writes or what audience (including themselves) they write for. Just the process of thinking about what to write is therapeutic, in my non-professional opinion. Writing also confers on a person appreciation for how hard an author has worked while reading a work that someone else has written. The result of that perhaps being a person who goes a bit easier when criticizing someone else’s writing. Those are some of the reasons that I enjoy writing, and why I set out to start writing here almost ten years ago. In fact, we’re in the tenth year of in the midst of a journey. But…
But I haven’t been writing often. For me that’s a problem. Not necessarily because I crave a huge audience, notoriety and riches as a result of my writing (would be nice though) but more because when I remind myself of the reasons I started this blog I start to realize that I’ve been letting myself down. My attitude about such things is thus. Do it or don’t don’t do it but don’t live in the in-between. The in-between being the place where, at the very least, I think about writing all the time but never actually write. Thinking prior to taking action (in this case writing) is a wonderful thing. Thinking incessantly and never taking action is not! So what to do? From my perspective there are two options for writing on In The Midst Of A Journey. Option one is to quit. Option two is to rededicate myself to it. I choose option two.
I choose to continue to write not only because of the reasons mentioned in the first paragraph but also because I know that I have meaningful things to share. Over these past ten years of my life in middle age I’ve learned things about life and the world that I never could have imagined in earlier years. Those things are worth contemplating and worth sharing. When I look around the internet I see a lot of sharing of things that really don’t mean a whole lot in terms of adding to people’s lives. I’m not putting people down who share things like their outfit of the day, what they’re having for dinner, what movie they just saw (or plan to see) or their thoughts on the news of the day…for example. I know that there are many people like myself who long to absorb bigger ideas related to much broader issues. Life, the universe and everything for example! 🙂
Sticking with anything out of the ordinary over the long haul is a difficult and unusual thing. I’ve also learned over the years that the people who do stick with out of the ordinary things over the long haul are happier and generally achieving their goals in life. I think I’m one of those people, but in order to actually lay claim to that I can’t live in the in-between. I can’t allow myself to be derailed by the many distractions that people tend to get caught up in these days. And while I’ve avoided some of those distractions I’ve been caught by others (fodder for a future post for sure). So rededicate myself it is! On with the journey.
In The Midst Of A Journey 