Every week, I sit down to write an article for The Odyssey. Each week, coming up with an idea to write an article about takes me nearly as long as writing the actual article. I find this amazing. So many thoughts go through my head all day and then when I need a solid thought, I come up blank a lot of times. It’s like when I study for a test for a week, but when I sit down to actually take it, I blank and can’t remember a thing.
As much as I love to write and finish an article or an essay, I hate the beginning. I dread having to come up with ideas and having to start a piece. Writing an introduction causes me agony. I write and write and write. Then I rewrite and rewrite and rewrite. I almost never like what I start with for an introduction. Professors always tell me to trust in the process. Frankly, sometimes the process pisses me off. I wish it was effortless and ideas came to me easily and effortlessly.
In this way, writing is just like life. Writing is frustrating. It causes me anxiety and takes up a large amount of energy, but there is no feeling like the one I get when I finish a piece of writing and the more effort I put into it, the prouder I am of it. This is also true of life. Things don’t always go well. It can cause me to have enormous amounts of stress, but the things that I devote the most time to in life are also the most rewarding when I succeed at them. There is nothing better than accomplishing something when I know how much work, time and energy I put into it.
The opposite is also true though. Occasionally, I’ll spend hours, days or even weeks writing for one piece or article and it doesn’t turn out well. Despite my best efforts, it doesn’t compare to what I had envisioned or wanted. The same is unfortunately true for life. Every once in a while, I’ll try hard at something and work at it, but to no avail. It won’t end the way I had hoped.
Although, it’s not the end of the world since in a few weeks I’ll have another paper or article to write or another thing in life to try to excel it. These days, it’s as easy as typing a few keystrokes to start a new document and to have a fresh start. In life, each morning is a new document. There is nothing written on it. Sometimes by the end of the day, the pages are a masterpiece and we are so proud of them and other times we just want to send them to the trash, but the beauty of it all is that the next morning, we can start anew. It’s up to us as to how we fill these pages and for better or worse the pages are all ours.
