'If Only'

Thoughts on wishing.

I’m a writer, shocking, as the sheer volume of my work here is super reflective of my writing ability, right?

Measuring work that is created is something that will foster either spite or pride. It’s a matter of how you look at what it is you’ve made. It’s true that I haven’t written any short work for this newsletter, and the serialized stuff is still in a rough state, but is that a sign of failure? That I am not a true writer because I haven’t written fiction here?

No, no it is not.

Fiction writing is difficult to pull off. You have to enter a flow state and getting to that flow state is tricky. You need to build in triggers to make it happen and dive into the stream, but if the stream doesn’t exist, it’s easy to see the bottom of that dry river bed and think, “You know what, I’m just going to do a blog instead.”

As if that’s easier somehow?

We move through moods and those moods give us the energy to do something. Now that something has an infinite possibility at the moment we notice the energy being given to it. We have a choice, do we make that possibility actionable or do we let it thrive and rot away? If there is one thing I’ve noticed is that the longer you look at a possibility without action following it the more it rots. If you center your identity on that rot and never do anything to try to achieve making that possibility tangible, the angrier you become.

At least that’s what I’ve noticed in my case.

Your mind becomes a bunch of ‘If onlys' and those are the two words that will whittle away at anyone achieving anything. Even if you are terrible at the thing you wanted to become or find that it isn’t as satisfying as you thought it would be, at least you know now and can move on to something else. ‘If only’ is an armchair general, a rotting idea, that will only make you stand still rather than move forward. Reflection on work is important, but to constantly second guess without action is the circular logic and trap that ‘if only’ could lead you into without you knowing it.

If only I could draw.

If only I were better at math.

If only I had hair, I could be the world’s sexiest writer.

‘If only’ is a good way of seeing where to start in moving yourself towards something. Moving towards anything takes a lot of work and that follow-through is the reason why a lot of people stay at ‘if only.’ ‘If only’ is wishful thinking and no amount of wishing is going to make that pile of dishes in the sink get clean faster.