Being 'Someone Who Writes'

First published on March 8, 2019

It's 8:36pm on a Friday night. I know what I 'should' be doing: any number of Friday night things. But I'm not. Because I'm someone who writes and shares a piece of writing every week.

It's not quite true, of course. Over the last few months there have been a number of weeks where I haven't shared a piece of writing in this practice - the practice that has produced around 100 articles like this one, written in about twelve minutes - but in each of those weeks where I haven't published something, it has been because I have shared something else, something that has felt bigger and more significant.

This week, until about an hour ago, I just forgot.

At other times in my life, I would have just written this off. I would have said, 'Ah, what a shame'. But this week, mid-pint in the pub on the corner, I remembered. And as soon as I told my wife, she understood. We got back, and I came into the office(/fancy guest room), set the timer, and started to write. And she got it, because this is a thing I do.

It's not easy to become someone who writes. It takes work, it takes commitment, it takes recommitment when you slip. And, worst of all, it takes starting. That's the hardest bit. It's like the laws of physics. As you lean against something, pushing it, trying to move it, the first millimeter is the hardest. The second is a fraction easier, and then, a little later, the thing is moving, rolling along. Then, you are a person pushing a car, or a boulder, along. It's almost harder, at that point, not to be pushing it than it is to be pushing it. Even if you stop pushing for a moment, the thing keeps moving, and before you know it you are pushing it again, keeping it movement.

That's what the practice of becoming someone who does something is like. Or at least that's what it was like for me.

I'm also someone who exercises. I didn't used to be. Well, that's not true. I was, then I wasn't, then I was, then I wasn't, then I was. And, now I am. But the first bit, that's the hardest bit. It's hard because it's hard (literally hard, to lift yourself off the ground, or run the extra metres), and it's hard because it's so easy to be someone who doesn't exercise. That takes no effort at all.

I spoke to a friend of mine today. She's in a new phase of her life, creating a portfolio of work which fits with the unique gifts she has. To me it seems obvious that the boulder she is pushing is already moving, and soon will be moving so fast (if she wants it to), but to her, the boulder is barely moving, and she has no sense that once it's moving it is going to just keep rolling. And the reason it will keep rolling is because all her unique talents are coming out, being expressed, in ways they weren't before. The patterns are emerging, but she doesn't know what they are yet. She doesn't know that she is going to become someone who creates work for themselves.

And one day, when we're already someone who writes, or someone who exercises or someone who creates work for themselves, we tell a simple story of how that happened. And people who look at us, they just see the end product. Ah, that's just someone who writes. We don't see the challenges, we don't see those first agonising moments as the boulder started to move. We don't see the blood, sweat and fears that almost stopped the person pushing. We don't see the moments when they stumbled, almost lost control, and decided, just as they were about to give up, to recommit, one more time. Those are the things we must remember.

Because it's a complex story how we make ourselves into something new. How we create a new part of our identity. How we become - in the end without thinking - someone who parents, or someone who runs a business, or someone who walks 10,000 steps every day when we didn't used to be that before.

The forces of the world seem arrayed against us. The attention grabbing dopamine hit of our devices. The mechanical pull of work, day after day. The voices in our head which tell us - perhaps based on something that used to keep us safe - to stay as we are, to not risk change.

It takes courage to change. It takes grit, and determination. And then - from the outside 'all of a sudden', but from the inside after months or years of graft and work - we are different. We are changed.

It's hard. And it's worth it.