I have a confession to make before I even begin: I’ve been slacking. I’ve been committed to many things over the past few months, but something I let fall behind was my writing, the one thing I have loved for the entirety of my life. So here I am, sitting inside while Typhoon Nesat passes overhead, committing myself to a new important goal: producing and finishing writing, even on the hard days when I don’t want to write. It’s not only important; it’s necessary.
Where do I even begin about the past few months? In April, I went to see Coldplay perform in Taipei with one of my good friends, Lynn. In May, I celebrated my birthday and hiked above the clouds a little north of Taichung, scaling rocks and basking in the sunlight that shone down on us from the top. June began the production and planning of a short film I had the honor to be a part of, from start to finish. And this brings us to now: we finished the film and I started seeing a Chinese tutor twice a week. Somewhere in the mix of that, I made the decision to stay another year in Taiwan teaching English and I purchased a scooter so I could maneuver around the city more easily. Needless to say, I was busy, just not with writing.
Since writing my “March Madness” post, I found myself diving deeper, wondering what else I could be doing with my increasing free time. You see, being a part of a project like the short film had me so busy and tired by the end, but despite the long days, sometimes terrible jokes, and hiccups here and there, I genuinely loved it and miss it already. So here I am, as I write this blog post, brainstorming and committing myself to part of a whole new plan I now have: to find and pursue the things that truly fill me with that same sense of purpose that I was reminded of a week ago.
For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be a published author. If there’s anything in the world I want to be recognized for, it’s my writing. From the start when I learned how to read, I used to fill notebooks with stories that filled my head, even when the plot lines were rubbish and the motives lacked depth deeper than wanting to have extra dessert after dinner or being angry at their brother because he threw her Barbie in the toilet. Now, I have recently struggled to write or finish anything, and that’s a disservice to my younger self.
If I could write stories like that when I was younger, not caring that they were terrible and show people, what is stopping me now from doing the same when I am at least a better writer and in possession of a more knowledgeable imagination? The answer is simple: criticism. But lately, I’ve wondered why I care so much what other people think. When I made the decision to come to Taiwan, not much stopped me other than making sure I could purchase the plane ticket and that I could fit what I needed for Taiwan. So I press myself with the same mentality I had nearly a year ago, when I purchased my plane tickets and chose to move to Asia: if you aren’t going to put your writing out there now, when are you going to do it?
It’s now or never, and what I’ve realized as of late is that this philosophy applies to anything you do. Whatever you commit to and dream about, it’s important that you start and finish it. Not for your parents, your family, your friends, or even the people that like your work, but for you. If you don’t finish something you love and you put effort forth for it, you’re going to feel crappy about it. And more so, you won’t even have something to go off of for your next project, because you’re just going to keep going through the same cycle of starting and never finishing projects.
As I told a friend, your current work is the best you can do at this point in your life, but there will be better projects, better stories, as long as you keep producing work to get to that point. You just have to start, or else you’ll never know what you can become, or who you’ll become. The hardest part of the journey is beginning. Once you’re past that, it’s a more or less a smooth ride as long as you listen to what you want and what the world is offering you.
The world is your oyster, and it’s better you chase your dreams then sit back on the couch and watch them play out for someone else, wishing it would have been you instead. I used to believe a lot in luck, but I quickly came to understand that luck is just a word we use to describe the things that are meant to happen to us, because we worked hard for them. It wasn’t luck that I ended up in Taiwan–it was a matter of working hard for a summer and finding a way to make it happen, no matter what challenges were ahead of me or the sacrifices I had to make.
As I ended my last article back in March, “nothing worth having ever came easy” and I agree wholeheartedly still with this idea. I don’t intend on giving up anytime soon: not with writing, not with my goals of traveling to more places, or any other desires that arise in the future. After all, the world is ours for the taking. I’m ready. Are you ready?
