What do I Want to do?
By: Naahushi Kavuri
Tags: Writer, Leadership Skills, Introspection, Habits

Do I really want to write a book? Deep down there in my heart, do I want to? Do I see myself selling books and stuff?

Sigh, yes, I do. But then, writing this 100 words everyday is being difficult for me. I haven’t written for the past two weeks or maybe it was just one week — nevertheless, it felt really long since I wrote my 100 words.

And I just watched a video of Malcom Gladwell on Master Class where he was talking about how a writer should first be a reader. A reader as in, not someone who reads a lot of books but as someone who can first think of a reader and be a reader.

You know? Honestly, writing 100 words every single day, I am writing but I don’t know a specific goal I have while doing so. I mean, what is my book going to be about? Sometimes I feel it should be about vulnerability, because I want to inspire people to be vulnerable. Other times, I think each topic should be on its own — 100 word topic. Of course, every topic will usually be more than 100 words.

Anyway… this is being difficult for me when I think about the process there is. First I have to write 100 words everyday. Then I have to read what I wrote and edit it, edit it again and keep rewriting until I don’t find a single word that I would like to have otherwise.

And while doing all this, I should be consistent, I should work hard — god — a lot goes into making what you want. And I guess this is where we all fail or slow down and stop.

We start on working on a goal. When we begin, little do we know how far we really need to go and how much hard-work and dedication we need to put all by ourselves without anyone motivating us. As we begin to realise all of that, we see how tall the hill actually is to climb. We come in terms with the fact that — it is super super difficult and it will take more than you thought to do that.

This difficulty that lies in front of us demotivates us by half and the other half, we do it ourself with every passing day we don’t attempt achieving it. Why is this phase so difficult? Its not that I don’t want to reap the benefits out of what will come to me if I really put myself through the struggle of effort and consistency — but I don’t want to put that effort in the first place. No, not everyday. That is really difficult.

I am not speaking for anyone, I am not talking to connect or relate to whoever is reading this, I don’t even know if anyone will ever read this. But in 100% honesty, talking to myself, I don’t want to work that hard.

I have so many fears. How do I consistently come up with really good ideas that people want to turn the pages to read? How do I keep the reader engaged? I am writing so much, how much will all of it pile up to when I finally want to go back and read each single one of them? How difficult is this really going to get? Can I even do what I want?

And among all these questions and the struggle to find answers, the mind unconsciously shows another way — do something else instead of this! Today I thought that I should go back to writing stories — fiction. I mean, not that I shouldn’t. But I have started on something here — non-fiction, something pragmatic and grounded — so why am I not thinking about this, but thinking about a new idea? The moment something gets difficult, the mind automatically seems to redirect us to another goal that seems relatively easy. And when that turns out to be difficult, it takes us to the thought process of searching for another one. Its exactly in this journey of jumping from one goal to another, we lose track of what we want to do and become confused. We are lost. We don’t know where we started and we are scared to go back to where we started, even if we can trace our steps back. Why are we scared? We don’t know. There are so many things to consider while going back to that idea that we left. What will people say? What will they think and what will we be called? Our personal ego.

God, we are more complex than we seem.

The point is this — everything is going to be difficult. I am not saying that we should not jump from one goal to another. We can. We totally can. But when we are jumping, I think we should understand why we are doing that. If we are jumping from the fear of not being able to achieve something because it’s really difficult and intricate, we should take some time for ourselves and come back to the same thing, because everything is going to be difficult and messed up. Period.

Jump around, but because you want to — not because the steepness of a hill scares you.