I’ve Been Writing For A While — Here’s Some Of The Lessons I Learned

I always like to think about ideas for ten minutes before starting to write my articles. After all, they’re going to stay long after I’m gone — they’re basically my immortal, digital legacy.

That mindset used to be absolutely great for my writing — it’s pretty hilarious to look back and think how long I used to take deciding whether to add a separator in between my Grammarly-proofed sentences of writing, or bold a word in an effort to “grab my audience’s attention” (if six people a month ever counted as an audience).

In those times, it was insanely challenging to keep up that constant work ethic and attention to detail in my articles, especially when I would be lucky to get a single clap on my articles as validation.

Now, looking back from a place where I’ve grown in almost every way,
I realized that my priorities started to shift. I went from an relatively unsuccessful yet fulfilled writer, to someone unknowingly trying to bear
the overwhelming burden of trying to please everyone with what I did.

It was literally impossible (don’t even try).

The Golden Rule: You Only Have To Please One Person — Yourself

Slowly — so slow that I was absolutely clueless as to what was going on, my articles started to turn from creative work that helped me grow, into something I did to please others:

I essentially sold myself — I sold my creative spirit to get a couple of extra views on my posts. I was a sell-out. Don’t do the same thing.

While making an analogy out of my half-year writing experience might be stretch to equate to the countless years others might have put into their field, I think it’s valid to say that its’ not worth trying to do what other people want to see when you aren’t fulfilled:

Don’t fall into the same trap by trying to appeal to everyone. You don’t have to, so don’t worry about it

That old mindset’s still embedded in my brain — I don’t know exactly when I started to care for the happiness of others over my own. Even as I’m writing this article, it’s a struggle to type out each word since I’m constantly worrying about whether people would actually read it.

More than likely, you don’t write regularly, but I hope you get what I mean. By doing something for others, you’re undeniably enslaving your invaluable, one-of-a-kind mind to them. Whether that’s doing what your boss wants you to do, trying to impress others, or anything that goes along those lines, think about whether what you’re doing is really for yourself or someone else.

The less you care, the happier you’ll be.

Don’t Make Assumptions — Think And Try For Yourself

Most people don’t want to harm you when they do this, but if you listen to everyone’s word blindly, then life could go haywire pretty quickly.

Just take the example of how you might have missed how I used the word ‘to’ twice in the sentence above — it would have been much less likely that you would have missed the duplicate word if you paid close attention to every word I write. But you didn’t.

That’s probably because you held the preconceived notion that I (and writers in general) would have 100% perfect grammar (even with Grammarly):

Even though it’s not your fault since humans are programmed that way, making assumptions, even tiny ones like these, can leave you vulnerable.

Of course, being paranoid for every little thing often does more harm than good, but it is important to know that just because somebody said something doesn’t mean that it’s an excuse to not see for yourself. Try being more of a skeptic in your everyday life (not the annoying type, though):

Remember, try not to take other people’s words for things unless you really trust them

In your day-to-day life, think about whether you’re disguising your opinion as a statement, or if you’re able to back that statement up with some knowledge or experience.

Trust me, by taking everything you hear from anybody with a little grain of salt, you’ll be seen as a much more trustworthy and reliable person — all while saving yourself a lot of embarrassing moments where you might be forced to support your opinions as facts.

In a nutshell, don’t be afraid to say you don’t know something — it’s much better than pretending and having to swallow your words later.

Be Grateful For Everything, Even The ‘Bad’ Things

Sometimes I like to think about how crazy it is that I’m lucky enough to have the internet — a resource that allows me to connect with anyone, gain knowledge, and share my thoughts with complete freedom.

I might have internet, but the majority of the world still doesn’t.

In fact, 99.9% of people before the before the 1990’s didn’t either. It’s absolutely mind-boggling to think that I feel like I’m being hindered to reach my full potential, when there’s people who achieved so much more in a time where they had to meet people face-to-face to communicate.

We live in 2020, and if you’re reading this article, you have access to the greatest tool that humanity as ever had access to — the internet. Not to mention cars. planes, electricity, and clean water (just to name a few). The bottom line? Now is the best time to be alive — now’s absolutely perfect to seize every opportunity we get.

No one, absolutely no one in history has had the same amount of resources and tools at your disposal to do what you want. Think about that

You are one of 7 billion people to have the opportunity to follow your dream, do something huge, and take advantage of your opportunities when so many people have to worry about survival.

Do you know how special that is?

Take my example — do you know how unlikely it would have been for me to have been able to freely express my opinion through writing has I been born in North Korea or another dictatorship? The chances would have been virtually zero.

In short, be grateful. Be grateful for the fact that while people are starving, sick, and tired from working all day to get by, you have the chance to not only survive, but thrive. In the face of all that’s going on in the world, keep in mind that any problem you might be facing means nothing in the grand scheme of things. Oprah Winfrey once said:

I hope that you realize that there’s so much more to life than the problems you face. By choosing to see your successes, even in your failures and shortcomings, you’re essentially buying yourself immunity against sadness. Being grateful for what you what ensures that you will magnetize much more in the future.

You’re doing a beautiful thing like life a huge injustice by seeing it as a series of your failures. Be grateful, and stay happy.

Thank you for reading.