Starting a blog has crossed my mind more than once over the past few years. Not because I want to tell people more about myself, or what happened in my day or what I had for dinner. I wanted to blog because writing can inspire people. And sometimes I think I might be able to write; I might be able to inspire people or make people think. But I’d never acted on those possibilities – why? I’ve never really let myself answer that question. Probably because I was afraid of what people would think. “Why is she blogging?”. Blogging isn’t what I’m expected to do. It’s not part of my ‘job’. My job, at the moment, is to try and play golf as well as I can and make good grades and love the people I care about.
I spend 9 months of the year in the hottest part of Florida – if that’s not being comfortable I don’t know what is.
But does that mean I shouldn’t want more? I’m not at a stage in my life where I’ve achieved everything I want to achieve. And I know that all those goals aren’t going to happen if I just sit here and do the same things that I’ve always done. So regardless of the fact it’s February and I know I can go and practice in a t-shirt and shorts tomorrow, I can’t let myself get comfortable.
It scares me how easy it is to settle. People do it with their relationships, their jobs, their dreams. All those dreams you had when you were a kid, all those things you favourite on twitter that say everything you wish you were – why can’t you be those things? Because life got in the way? Things get in the way, of course they do. But if it wasn’t hard, it wouldn’t be worth it. Sorry for the cliché, but clichés come from truth. When it gets below 25 degrees in Miami (I know, I’m sorry), 95% of people here complain that it’s cold. And yet when it scrapes into double figures in England, there’ll be people wandering around in shorts. It takes experience of the cold to appreciate the warmth.
And it takes experience of struggle to appreciate success. It’s hard to allow the possibility of struggle into your life if everything’s ok at the moment. But is ‘ok’ everything you ever wanted? Don’t let the struggle put you off. Just because you’re comfortable with where you are, it doesn’t mean that’s where you should be. It just means you’re capable of more.
Trying to make people think, by writing stuff online, isn’t part of my job. But maybe I am capable of it. Maybe I’m not, and nothing I ever write will affect anybody’s life in any way. The thought of that, having gone to the trouble of writing this, isn’t particularly fun. It’s uncomfortable. But my ‘job’, my real job, is exactly the same as everyone else’s.
Be all I can be.
