A couple of weeks back we discussed the Awesome Power of One Word. Today, boys and girls, we’re going to build on that.
Cast your mind back to your younger self.
Picture what you looked like and what you were doing.
How old are you?
In this picture in your mind, are you sitting in your third grade classroom listening to an impossibly old person drone on about periods and commas?
Or, are you scrapping with your brother? Riding your bike all over town with an abandon that present-day kiddos can’t even fathom?
Maybe you’re hiding under your covers with a flashlight and a comic book.
Now that you’ve got that image, whatever it is, firmly fixed in your mind, I give you an assignment.
Look that younger self in the eye and speak one sentence that might change your thinking forever—if you listen, that is—and set you on a course living your best life.
My sentence to me, at age 16, would be this: Don’t listen to anyone who tries to talk you out of your dream–go for it!
What do you say to you? Do tell . . .
“Your fears of failure, of making mistakes, of exposing who you are to the world, will always be there, in the background—ignore them and write, it’s the only way to create the stories you dream of telling.”
Good morning Dale.
“…exposing who you are to the world…”
Yep! Since about 6th grade that’s been my hardest bugaboo to kill off. You’d think, at my age . . . 🙂
Thanks for stopping by, my friend!
Start writing NOW!
Hi Jane!
Yes! That’s a good one for sure. Sometimes my head is so full of sentences that I can’t squeeze one out from the keyboard. But this sentence reminds me that all I need to do is write ONE…
Have a good day!
You don’t have to be the best, you just have to do your best.
Hi Becky…THAT is a great sentence to my younger self. Actually, I think I remember my Dad saying that to me a time or two.
Good tip for any age, too–even us oldsters. 🙂
Thanks for comin’ by this morning, and have a good weekend.
To adolescent me: “Don’t worry about being weird. The cool kids will be weird soon enough.”
Ha ha, John! I like that one…
I think we’re seeing some of those “cool kids” in commercials and other entertainment venues, right? There’s a lot of weird out there.
🙂
Have a great day!
Go to law school or maybe computer science.
I went to flight school. I loved it. I would miss being a pilot. On the other hand, I worked very hard to be a pilot and never did it for money.
“…and never did it for money.”
Most of us could apply that to writing. 😎
Thanks for buzzing in, Alan, and adding to the chat. Have a great day…
I’ve read too many time travel stories. I would never give my early self advice because that kind of thing always ends badly. Over seventy years of perspective has shown me how I was herded like a cow through a narrowing series of chutes toward inevitable choices. Even my writing career was just a pat on the head and a distraction so my role in my family wasn’t so depressing.
Good thing, I guess, that time travel is just a myth. 😉
Have a great day!
Don’t worry about what others think about you. They’re too busy worrying what you think about them.
Took me a long time to figure that one out.
I hear ya, Debbie…I still wade in that creek sometimes. Sigh.
Have a great day!
Don’t dumb yourself down for people who will never understand who you are and what you can create through knowledge.
Hi Suzanne!
“Don’t dumb yourself down…”
Agreed. That’s a great way to say it.
Have a wonderful weekend!
I did the work (the STEM PhD, the focus) and DID get the chance: I was in the finals at Houston for NASA astronauts (group 9). Right eye was not up to snuff – darn! Not everything works out, and even the idea of radial keratotomy made the people in charge twitchy (I don’t blame them – there were plenty of wonderful candidates without physical problems), so that one didn’t make it. But the childhood dream GOT a chance.
I got to do fusion research at Princeton for ten years. Best place in the US – didn’t expect illness to kneecap that dream, but I got the chance to do the work – and loved it.
Now I write, and I make the chance.
Circumstances govern what takes hold, but what we put in governs the chances. It will have to do. I am content, as now I am the only thing sometimes standing in my own way (that and the illness, of course), and the drive hasn’t diminished.
“But I got the chance.”
I really love that mindset, Alicia.
❤️
Have a good one!
You can be whatever you want to be. Don’t let others talk you out of that dream.
Yep!
We were lucky to have 2 parents who drilled that into all 4 of us. 🥳
Thanks for stopping by, Barbara, and have a great weekend.
My parents came at it a little differently than the last comment. They told me I could be and do whatever I set my mind to if I worked at it.
On another note, I had an art teacher tell me I would never be a potter…took me 20 years before I tried, but at age 58, I proved her wrong!
Hi Patricia!
Your parents were so right. The “work at it” ethic is so important.
Wouldn’t it be fun if you could somehow show that teacher some of your work…😬
Thanks for joining in today.