Morning Coffee #56: Blank Page… aka I don’t know why I do this

These past days, I have been in a contemplative mood. Every morning, the thought of writing down my thoughts and sharing them with you all has become a routine but lately I have had to ask myself why I do this. It’s not like I do not enjoy writing or articulating my thoughts properly. It’s just… I feel like I write about the same thing every time. I don’t feel fresh ideas and thoughts coming in. So I had to take a couple of days off to ask myself why I do this.

And to be honest, I don’t really know where I’m going with all these. I know one thing for sure. This activity of writing straight from my head (or heart, depending on the day) is helping me build consistency with the art of writing. I recall Steven Pressfield talk about Resistance in his best seller The War of Art. He described Resistance as a force that subtly distracts us from what we are supposed to do. Perfect example. I was doing some designs yesterday and decided to take a 5-minute break. I could have easily just sat in my chair and relaxed my eyes but instead I went on YouTube to watch the Winter Soldier and Falcon trailer. If you know how the YouTube rabbit hole works, then you’d understand when I say that I spent an hour searching for random things instead of getting back to work. That’s Resistance.

Pressfield also talked about beating Resistance by just doing what the hell we are supposed to do without caring if it’s good or bad as long as we put in our 100%. Here is my problem. I can sit and do the work most times. I just don’t know if I have put in my best effort most times.

Have you ever finished a task and not felt the satisfaction of completion because you feel like something might be missing? This is me most of the time when I write. I hit that final full stop and publish but somewhere at the back of my mind, I just feel I didn’t put enough into those words.

So this has been my dilemma lately but then I’m not letting it stop me from doing this. Along the line, I will figure it out. If I don’t, at least I got to do something I set my mind out to do. And even when I do figure it out, I just want to be able to give it my everything without too much worry about the quality since after all the Greats before me had moments of shitty writing.

Cheers!