Create something. Do, please.

I don’t know what your life is like. Maybe it never stops. Maybe every moment feels precious because there is always something you need to get done. Maybe you are stressed. Maybe you are anxious all the time and you feel like if you take a moment away from what you are doing now, everything in your life will fall apart.

Maybe you have all the time in the world. Perhaps everyday feels like a huge, empty expanse of time, and you don’t have the energy to change it. Perhaps just getting out of bed every morning feels hard enough without tacking on a project.

Perhaps you already know it’s going to suck. Everyone will laugh at you and hate your singing voice because you always start in the wrong key. You’ll spend six weeks on a painting, only to have it laughed out of an art school you’ve waiting your entire life to attend. You’ll put everything you have into a photo gallery, or a blog post, or a short story, only to have it disappear into the dark, lonely corners of the Internet. Even worse, someone you care about will read it, or look at it, or listen to it, and they’ll think it’s "cute," and you’ll wonder if that person knows or loves you at all. You’ll wonder because you put everything you are on the line to create something beautiful, and no one understood or appreciated it.

Please don’t let that stop you.

If you are stressed and busy, you deserve a break. Life is not about overcoming the next hurdle, because unfortunately there will always be another one. Life never stops, and in the rare moments when it does, you may find yourself feeling alone and bored, because your overflowing life has suddenly emptied, and you no longer know how to spend each moment. Do not wait for your life to flatten to make something out of your thoughts and ideas. Use your beautiful, individualized mind when it's busy and buzzing to create something, to make something for yourself. Your life is not meant to be a series of obstacles, but if it is, you owe yourself some time.

So take it.

Be bold. Seize those non-existent five minutes and doodle on the corner of your organic chemistry notebook. Draw something that makes you smile, even if you are only smiling because you feel like laughing at your self. Not everyone is an "artist," and those that are rarely think of themselves that way.

You might not be busy. You might be stuck in a rut, and your life has stopped, and you do feel empty. Your mind may be way out of shape, and your creative juices may be practically untapped, but that does not mean you should not access that part of yourself.

I’m not saying it won’t be hard. Starting something, picking yourself up and putting pen to paper is SO hard. The first time you do something—whether it’s the first time in a long time, or the first time ever—what you create is rarely what you want it to be, but that does not mean you should stop trying. Good art does not happen with ease; it comes with practice. You may need to try again and again to form something you can be proud of, but creating something you can be proud of will give you a reason to continue, and everyone needs one of those.

If you are tired, because everything in your life seems meaningless, make something meaningful. Songs are meaningful. People listen to music to escape their lives, or to add something to it. Photos and drawings capture the mundane and they add a life of their own. Speech and the written word is an art form. Many people spend day after day drowning in an ocean of emails, and never think to write something, an idea, just for fun. Stories are not just for children. They are for anyone who wishes to laugh, or cry, or share a moment, a thought, with someone else.

Do not be afraid of others’ judgment. You do not owe anybody anything. Sure, bringing music and art into the world is lovely and important. If no one ever sang, or wrote, or beat-boxed, the world would be much darker, and there’d be no reason to smile. So yes, when you create something, you will be adding to the literature of our world, but you don’t need to put yourself out there for other people. You are not responsible for the happiness of others, and you should not burden yourself with the reactions of others.

Because other people will hate your art. Some people think Shakespeare is the best writer of all time. Probably just as many high school students hate his guts and wish he died even before his fifty-second birthday, but they still have to read his plays. Shakespeare wasn’t great because he was a perfect play write. He wasn’t. Romeo and Juliet was clearly a mistake. Shakespeare was great because he tried. Yes, Shakespeare was a talented guy, but the world would never have known it if he hadn’t gone with his gut and put himself out there.

OK, so you probably aren’t Shakespeare. In fact, you might suck. You might take a water color class, only to make something really ugly. So what? You made something. You added a creative something to the world. You took a part of yourself and attempted to translate it into something relatable. More than that, you took time and effort, and you spent it on yourself. Investing in your own ideas is the greatest thing you could do for you and for your future self. You can only add to your life by making something of it.

Sometimes it’s so hard to find time for myself. I am constantly stressed, and I am constantly thinking of the next thing I need to do. At the same time, I wonder what the point of my day is almost every day. Almost everything I do feels futile, and yet the tasks never end. The only time I don’t feel anxious is when I sit down and write something. When my brain shuts up, and I just focus on putting everything I am into one project, I don’t feel bored or stressed, and suddenly my days don’t feel so endless.

I deserve those moments, and so do you.

I sing. Sometimes it’s a whispered song in the dining hall; sometimes it’s a performance in the shower. I don’t sing because I think I’m good, and I hardly ever sing for others. I sing because I have to. I sing because sometimes late at night I can feel myself going crazy, crazy enough to run outside to the back of my dorm, where loud machinery can drown out my belting. It helps when nothing else does.

I need it, and so do you.

You need an outlet, an activity that doesn’t stress you out, to practice in moments of silence that you find for yourself.

You need something to fill that silence: something that isn’t dependent on another person, something in yourself you can love.

You need a reason to drag yourself out of bed every morning. Everyone does. An activity you enjoy, or a project to work on could be that reason.

You might look forward and see nothing worthwhile, but there is something. There is and always will be something important in your future, because it does and always will have you.

You are important. The things you say, and the things you think have significance. You are a living, breathing part of this world, and your voice has a place in it.

So please, create something. Put a piece of yourself out there. Even if it’s something small, even if it’s only a start; even if everyone hates it, even if you hate it, make something.

Who knows? Maybe it’ll be beautiful.