Mission Statement to Myself

My favorite quote has always been “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” The world existed long before I came around, and it will exist long after. But it need not be the same world. Indeed, it cannot be, for by my very presence I change the world. But that is not enough for me, I’m afraid. I cannot merely be satisfied with myself, for I have the willpower and the imagination to effect great things. Sometimes I doubt this and I am frustrated. It is easy to lose sight of ourselves amidst our surroundings, to “see the forest from the tree” to use the expression. When you doubt yourself, you doubt everything.

There’s a part of me that needs to create, and it is frustrated that I just don’t seem to have many ideas lately. I think everyone is driven by something and that is what drives me. Success means adding something to this world that is uniquely yours. That is why I need to write or make music or just record myself talking. If I am not creating something then I feel like I am just wasting my time. Eventually there may come a day when getting married and having kids will seem like a sufficient culmination of all that I have lived and experienced, but right now I am young – and selfish. And so, success to me at this moment means having a body of work, to have something that bears my name and means something to someone else.

I probably think about writing ten times as much as I actually write, and yet I dare to call myself a writer. What arrogance it requires for someone to take something that virtually anyone can do and declare to the world that they deserve to get paid for doing it. You might as well call yourself a “professional breather” or a “professional walker.” Then again, writing – like thinking – is an activity that everyone can engage in and yet so few actually do on any kind of regular basis. So right here in this paragraph I have distilled what it takes to be a writer: the ability to think and a great deal of arrogance. These I possess, if nothing else.

I suppose I left out talent, but as I can neither quantify it nor qualify it, I cannot describe it. Suffice to say, it is not for me to affirm whether I have it or not. I am not fishing for compliments here, nor attempting to seem humble, but merely explaining that anything I can create will always fall short of whatever intangible ideal is swimming around in the murky sea of half-formed thoughts from which I draw forth ideas kicking and screaming. This is a complicated way of saying that I am my worst critic, a fact that my closest friends know with a certainty that can only come from listening to me ramble on over games of Peggle or Marble Madness.

And speaking of rambling let me dredge this river for a point. With the Internet as my witness, I am issuing a challenge to myself. I challenge myself to write something – anything – every single day from this point forward, for such time as it takes for me to no longer be slightly ashamed about calling myself a writer. It need not be something of great significance, and I am not requiring myself to post everything on this blog (though I will try and do so as often as possible), but it must be more substantial than a Facebook update, an email, or a text message. Writers write, and so this is my Mission Statement: put aside doubt, stop over-thinking, and simply be a writer.