I recently read a social media thread concerning motivation concerning writing. I read all these post about people having writer’s block and how they dealt with it. Then, I talked to my mother. She is in her eighties. She is wanting to sleep most of the day, isn’t eating properly and isn’t getting any physical activity. It reminded me of times earlier when she would ask me things like, “Don’t you get tired of taking medication every day?”.
I know dealing with writer’s block and dealing with old age don’t seem to go together, but in my mind they do. It’s about how I approach life. If I were to approach life, feeling like I didn’t have control over my own actions or mistaking what aspects of life I had control over, then I probably would get incredibly frustrated with life. I could see myself getting writer’s block and feeling like there I had no control over it and like there was nothing I could do about it. I could see myself getting to old age and feeling tired and helpless because I felt like the aging process that was happening to my body was out of my control and there was no action, I could take to remedy the situation.
In both these situations, my perspective would put me on a path to self-destruction. After all, with or without God, if I am helpless and life is pointless, then why even try? The reason to try is simple. While there’s not much in life, I have control over, the one thing I do control is myself. I shape my own reality.
When it comes to writing, if I believe that I’m not going to have writer’s block, then I’m not going to. If I ever am sitting in front of a blank screen and can’t think of anything to write. Then, I just give that feeling up to God and I choose to start writing anyway until I get something out of it. After all, if 1000 monkeys typing will eventually create a master piece, then surely if I just work at it, I will create something worthwhile.
When it comes to old age, sure my body is getting old, but as the poem goes, I do not plan to go silently into the night. I don’t get tired of getting up every morning, taking my medications, eating meals, seeing the sun, or any of the little things that make life worth living. I take the position that my life is a gift from God, and I should have the upmost gratitude for it. I believe that gratitude should be for not just the good times, but every single moment, even the moments of pain and sorrow. My perspective isn’t that life is something that is thrust upon me and that I have no control over it. Life is something that I am choosing every day to embrace and be grateful for. If there’s something in my life that I don’t like, then I can either change it or change my attitude about it, but I will never let myself be a helpless victim saying that I am stuck. Even if I was, I would give that up to God, and still embrace my circumstances and be grateful for the experience because life is a gift.
The point of this post is that whenever I feel stuck or helpless, I realize that it isn’t because I am. Most of the time when I find myself boxed into a corner, it’s because I’ve put myself there. The best way out is to think about what I can control: what actions can I take. For in the end, the only aspect of life I can really control is myself and the rest I just need to give up to my higher power: God. When I say can only really control myself, what I mean is I shape my own reality, I embrace life and have gratitude for it, and I show love and patience for others in my actions and attitudes. It really doesn’t matter what the rest of the world does, I can’t control that. All I can do is choose life: my life.
My faith saved me. May God’ peace reside in all of our hearts.
