All your words matter: A letter to my unmotivated self
So I am feeling at the top of the world right now. The last piece we wrote was received well by our friends, relatives, and loved ones.
Well, always remember that these days come like the ebb and tide. You know that. But when we are in that triumphant high, our subconscious pushes out the ‘down’ days for a few moments.
And I want you to remember these ‘down’ days. The Sundays when you wished you had written something more, the Saturdays when you wanted to go out and meet friends but everyone was too busy. The hours you spent on Netflix and Amazon Prime because you didn’t know what else to do. The sheer boredom which drove you to spend at least an hour on Instagram. Or just reading endless articles, but never completely reading any because you were so bored you couldn’t concentrate and moved on to the next.
This may sound a tad pompous, but let me tell you, where I am now is what kept you going during those ‘down’ days. The knowledge that you have it in you to push yourself and do something which you hadn’t before. You will question yourself, “Am I watching too many motivational videos and not doing enough to channelise that motivation?” Well, you’re maybe right in thinking that you aren’t doing as much as you can stuff into those hours. But also remember that you are doing as much as you can imagine yourself doing, at that moment. Don’t be your personal judgemental neighbour.
One other thing though, just let go of that notion that everything you have to write has to be poignant, funny AF or just plain perfect. Spend some time with that blank page with that cursor blinking at you. Taunting you. Do not just close that page and begin another one of those countless half-read articles. Keep looking that sucker in the eye till you are livid enough to point that rifle of a keyboard and just blast that cursor’s brains out with your words.
And let me tell you, those motivational videos you watch and positivity images you keep reading, do help! While they don’t give you the fodder to write, they do give you the courage to push on, like you are doing right now.
Remember that Sunday afternoon which you spent writing and re-writing till you were mind-numbingly tired yet ecstatic that you wrote something new? It came after a lonely Friday night, an utterly wasted Saturday, just watching Sacred Games. The feeling of sheer uselessness drove you to do something you weren’t anticipating yourself to do an hour ago!
All I want you to remember is, these days were what drove you. Drove you to do something bigger in life. These days were what drove you to write. These were the days that drove you to become me!
