Practice

I listened to a podcast recently where Seth Godin talked about writing his daily blog.  He stated that roughly 50 percent of the time, his blog was not something that he found useful or inspiring.  Occasionally  he felt that what he had to say was worth writing about or something he was proud of sharing, but the intent of his daily blog was not to produce something earth shattering.  The purpose of the blog was to practice.  Practice writing, practice having a voice, organizing his thoughts, being himself.  A daily reminder  to himself that the world is worth participating in and that he needed to do so. 

None of us, no matter how gifted, learn how to do something by sitting on the couch and dreaming.  Adele didn’t learn how to sing, Usain Bolt didn't learn how to run, Hemmingway didn’t learn how to write, nor did Picasso learn how to paint simply by thinking about the talents they were born with.  Nor would they have known that they had those God given talents if they had never explored them.  We have to practice.  I have never seen a child simply stand and walk or start speaking in full sentences on the first try.  There is a combination of frustration and curiosity that leads a child to want to understand and participate more fully in the world around them.  They practice doing what is needed to be part of that world. They practice walking and talking.  They don’t worry about doing it perfectly, they just do it. 

When I decided to take a month out of my life for myself, I knew I wanted to make sure to capture as much of it as I could.  So I decided that I would practice writing a blog.  Writing is something that brings me joy.  I love reading great writing and I love writing.  Most of my writing, however, has been in my head, sitting on the couch.  Dreaming about writing, not actually participating in the sport.  Afraid to put my words to paper.  Afraid of what people would think.  Scared that people would read it and terrified that they wouldn't.  Knowing everyone would have an opinion, a judgment.  Certain that no matter what I wrote, it could never be good enough.  No. More. 

This blog is selfishly just me learning to practice.  Yes, it will be a chronicle of my journey.  Maybe it will be interesting or inspirational, but I am setting none of those expectations for myself or for anyone who might read this blog.  My goal is to write something every day, no matter how long or short.  There will be misquotes, typos, bad grammar, poor punctuation and I will ramble.  Forgive me.  And as a recovering perfectionist, I will also try to forgive myself.  This is about progress not perfection.  It is about learning how to notice my life as it is happening around me, not as I dream about it being.  This is about participating in my own life. 

For those of you reading, thank you for coming along on this journey with me.  I purposefully disabled the "leave a comment" function on my website.   Frankly, I wouldn't have read them anyway.  My silly ego, the one I argue with every day as to whether or not writing is something I should do, would have shut me down if there had been even one negative comment.  This is my playground, my learning how to participate in the world.  I will make mistakes, I just don't want them pointed out right now.  My blog, my rules….;^)

And I will remind myself often that this is what practicing looks like.  There will be beauty and inspiration and words I didn’t even know I had.  There will also be epic fails and many mistakes.  I will be embracing the philosophy of  "this and that", the reality that life is always this AND that, good and bad, happy and sad, gratitude and grief, perfect and flawed.  The truth that both success and failure can exist at the same time.  Success is that I practice writing every day.  And that most of it might be a failure - in concept, in meaning, in word choice or clarity - but that with practice, I might learn something about myself along the way.  That I can embrace the curiosity and frustration needed to participate in my world, to find my voice, to organize my thoughts and to grow. 

So read.

Or not. 

Enjoy.

Or not. 

No matter what, I look forward to sharing the next month of my life with my family and friends.  Thank you for being a part of my life.  Something else I need to practice….letting you ALL know more often how very much you mean to me.

Now I have to practice learning how to actually post this thing….