As an opinion journalist in today's society, I struggle to find ways to do my job of delivering my opinion. Every week, I wrack my brain with how I can state my opinion and write an effective article that causes little to no flack from my audience. I have created a long list of possible article ideas and have yet to write a single one because I find myself hiding in fear of what people may think of my writing or what people may say.

If there is one thing I wish I knew before choosing to become a journalist, it would be that no matter what you write or how unbiased you try to make it, people will still have an opinion about it, whether that may be positive or negative.

I have written a few strongly opinionated pieces that can easily be debated and I was quite proud of them; I consider them to be some of my best pieces. I did receive both positive and negative feedback from them but chose to ignore the negative, which was not as hard as I had deemed.

So, why is it so hard for me to continue to write pieces today?

My articles are shared online through multiple social media platforms, including Facebook, which many people use as a way to promote their own opinions as well. I have noticed from time to time, that some of my Facebook friends have opinions that differ from mine, which is not a bad thing because everyone is entitled to their opinions. The only repercussion of this is that it causes an internal war within my head as to what they might think of my opinion and how my opinion may hurt them in a way or cause them to see me in a different light.

As I continually beat myself up at my attempts to write an effective opinion article, there is one thing that my mother would continually tell me: I needed to write what about what I believed in and own it. Despite her telling me this time after time, it has taken a while for those words to actually resonate within me.

When I look at a successful journalist, they all seem to have the same thing in common — they all own their work and stand by what they have written in confidence.

So, it is about time that I try to become a successful journalist, to own my writing and stand by what I have written in confidence. With that being said, this is another new beginning for me, or more specifically the beginning of a new style of writing. A style that is my own, a style that promotes my trust in journalism and creates a stronger voice that I would like to call my own.

With my eyes towards this future, I am filled with excitement for what I have planned for myself.