Every time I write, whether it’s pen to paper or hands to keyboard, I’m taking a risk. I know. It doesn’t seem like it. I’m sitting in the comfort of my own house. I’m doing something (writing) I’ve been doing every day for the last month and which I’ve been studying for much, much longer. It should be easy, right? Low-risk? Safe even?
Nope.
It’s time and energy towards something that’s seemingly frivolous. What if I’m misunderstood? What if I run out of ideas? What if the creativity spring runs dry? What if I wasted it all on this one post? What if the time I’m taking towards doing this would be better off spent raising chickens or cleaning my kitchen? What if a meteor hits my house right as I’m sitting here? What if I develop carpal tunnel syndrome from all this typing?
What if I die a Taurus? What if I die on purpose?
What if it wasn’t even worth it? What if I’m walkin’ alone?
What if I choke on this Slurpee? What if I make it big?
What if my car exploded
While I’m casually pumping the gas and smokin’ a cig?
What if my life was loaded? (Lyrics from Doechii’s Stanka Pooh)
It’s putting myself, my thoughts, ideas words, images out there. Judgement and ridicule waiting just around each corner. Or they could just collapse out there in the world, unseen, unknown, unrecognized?
But there are worse things. Like what?
Playing it safe. I could just go clean the kitchen. I could just stand up from this desk and, well, quite literally do any number of other things: go for a walk, read, drive to the beach, buy a plane ticket to the Maldives, take a nap on the couch, blow dandelion seeds, steal a car, etc… And, yes, all of those have risks involved.
I could do what I was doing before, the low-risk, safe option: writing and submitting that writing for someone else (a publisher or editor or judge) to “approve” my writing, to decide it was worthy of publication. But in the end, that “safe” option was much more damaging to me, to my emotional health. I allowed each rejection to be a blow to my self image, my self worth. I let them dim my light.
Finally, I decided to stop playing it safe, to stop asking for approval from other people, and to start saying “yes” to myself. I started this blog. Each time I hit publish, it’s a risk. Someone could “steal” my words or twist my ideas. I have just enough experience in the world to know that there are ways in which what I publish here could be used against me. But I don’t spend too much time thinking about that, doing risk assessments, or trying to protect myself and keep everything one hundred percent safe. If I did that, I’d be trapped in an endless cycle of perfectionism, double checking, making sure I was pleasing everyone else all the time. I know where that cycle kept me: in silence.
Instead, what I do is I trust. I trust the source of my creativity, I trust my lived experiences and, above all else, I trust myself. I breath. And I smash that button: publish.
Rhena Writes 