Life’s more fun when you don’t sweat the small things
The key is recognizing which ones are the small things.
By Laura Estandia, as told to Haley Young
I just wrote the first draft of my children’s book.
It’s pretty terrible.
When I was a kid, my favorite story was The Mare on the Hill. It was the first book I learned how to “read” — I was only two and couldn’t actually make out a single letter, but I memorized the entire thing.
Writing doesn’t come naturally to me, but reading does. I’ve always appreciated good language, and I’ve wanted to write a children’s book for a while.
I have a lot of friends who are artists, so I thought it could be a really fun collaborative opportunity. Gignite came along and gave me a reason to start it.
And even though this first draft was pretty awful, I’m excited to keep working on it.
I’m not 100% sure where it will go or what the story will look like, but I do know one thing: I’m having fun.
If it’s not fun, I’m not doing it. I seek enjoyment in all of my life experiences, and a big part of that is not taking myself — or my first bad draft of a children’s book — too seriously.
I used to get a lot more caught up in the small things. I would stress for hours about school. I could spend hours worrying about a presentation that would end up only being five minutes of my life.
Then I realized that in the grand scheme of life, a lot of those things don’t really matter.
It’s not that you shouldn’t try — those things are important — but they’re not as important as calling my mom and connecting with friends and getting outside of my comfort zone from time to time.
It’s still a work in progress, but I’ve learned not to get so caught up in my own head.
I try to talk myself down from the cliff of stress. I like to play this mental game of looking at the big picture and finding things I’m thankful for. I’ll say, “Alright Laura, don’t get bogged down — this isn’t the end of the world,” and remember not to be so serious.
After all, life is about having fun.
The first Gignite meeting was awesome — our group gelled really well together, and it was great to get out of my day-to-day routine to do something creative. I was energized by the conversations we had and excited to kickstart my book.
Then the second night came, and I had to actually write a draft.
That was a lot more stressful. I had to tell myself not to think about it too much. It sucked, honestly — but like most things, it wasn’t the end of the world.
And by the end of the night, I had something on paper, and I walked away feeling really accomplished.
