Don't take the fun out of the things you love...

I have always loved writing. More specifically creative writing. It's always been something I really enjoyed doing and I believe it is because I have never really been good with expressing myself vocally. Although the words were there, I could never master the courage to say what I felt and thus the option to write instead. For most of my highschool years I kept note books where I'd write down descriptions of places I loved or things I enjoyed or sometimes even emotions. Nothing too deep really but it allowed me to do something that when I was busy with, I didn't feel like I needed to be doing anything else. And the habit of writing became something so personal that I'd write almost about anything and it'd just come out beautiful (or so I've been told). So I recently got the idea to start my own blog which is why you are reading this right now. And all of the sudden I just got stuck. I couldn't figure out what to write about. Ofcourse the ideas were there but I just couldn't master the courage to finish the pieces I came up with. All of the sudden everything just didn't seem good enough or relatable enough and so I decided to ask someone who's opinion I trusted (and still do) what they would do in my situation passing of what I was working on as a presentation I had been stuck working on. So this friend of mine asked what I was really busy with and after I'd confessed that it was my blog that was worried about, he went on to tell me to just pretend like I was writing for fun. To get the idea of blogging out of my head because the pressure I was feeling came from thinking more about whether my readers would actually enjoy what I had to say rather than doing what I love. And ofcourse he was right. This probably something most of you would have figured out but the reality of the matter is that we often allow the spark that lies within the things we love to fade because we lose sight of why we love them. Once we realize that other people are looking the pressure to make our work more lovable or relatable or more humorous takes the place of why we love to do what we do. We lose that sense of authenticity and so it becomes more of a chore than a passion. It becomes something you need to do and be good at instead of something you love to do. This is probably the most basic advice that a person could give but please don't take the fun out of what you love to do. Do it the way you want to do it and not what you think other people want you to do it. That's the only way you'll truly be your authentic self and most of the time that's all people really want. Not perfection, just an authentic voice. So whatever you do, do not allow yourself to be pressured into being perfect. Allow yourself to be you. Your personality in the work you do is what makes you unique.