It’s that time of the year again, we guess. The New Year is just upon us, and it always gets us thinking about our lives in general. It’s that time of the year when we go back to basics and start thinking about things that we really want out of our life. Every year we go back to the rigmarole of waking up at 6 a.m. for a jog, re-enrol in a hobby class, get regular in the gym, and restart writing without fail. This is that one month of the year when we dabble in a little bit of writing, go for a few hobby lessons, start jogging and gym together, and every year, again without fail, we stop doing these after a few days.
Year after year, we motivate ourselves and tell ourselves that these are our passions and are the things that matter to us most on a personal level. Yet every year we end up doing all of these for a month before quitting and stopping as we let other external factors such as work, family, and a thousand such excuses to come in the way of something we truly desire.
But what really makes me quit and stop doing these? That has been the question nagging in our minds for the last few days. Guitars, writing and reading and other similar endeavours, have been our passions for as long as we can remember. Then why haven’t we been able to get ourselves motivated for long enough to make these a habit or more satisfyingly a career choice? The whole last month has been spent tossing and turning and doing a lot of introspection along these lines. And the only conclusion we got is that more than anything, and more than being lazy or busy, is that we are just afraid.
One would ask, what are we afraid of? We thought about it and what we realized is that the biggest thing we’re scared of is not being good enough. In Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, the youngest March sister Amy muses about herself giving up painting because as she put it, she was talented but had quickly realized that she was not a genius. And she would rather not do anything than be just mediocre. And whether we agree or not, our subconscious has been telling us rather to be nothing if we can’t excel at the things, we’re passionate about.
But after much introspection, the question we asked ourselves is if we were happy being scared and amounting to nothing? More importantly, should we be worried about not being as good as someone or should we be more concerned about being good enough for ourselves? Wouldn’t we rather be satisfied being the best we can be than producing nothing at all?
And in the end, we concluded that not only is it more important for us to prove to ourselves that we’re good enough, we’ve also accepted that it is perfectly fine for us just to be satisfied with something we produce than do nothing and be sad about not even attempting to fulfil our passions. Because as cheesy as it might sound, nothing gives us as much happiness as writing something for ourselves or our friends does, or while playing a few notes on the guitar (as horrible as they might sound to others).
So, this year we vow to ourselves that we will keep a positive frame of mind towards our passions, keep ourselves properly motivated and focus on the goals that we set for ourselves. And hopefully, with this renewed motivation and positivity we’ll be able to keep ourselves on track this year and get our mind, body and soul on track. And who knows, maybe we will make a career out of this still!
So here’s to the new ideas, this new journey, to Scribe. Cheers!
