Writing and life

I feel I put a lot of pressure on myself. I put pressure on myself to write a great screenplay and get it sold and made into a movie and skyrocket my career into the stratosphere. But why? Why not just write for the sake of writing? It’s an end in itself. If I never make it big as a writer or as an actor, who cares? As long as I get to continue doing what I love, what does it matter? I want to be successful as an actor because those who make it big get the best roles. But getting the best roles is not the most important thing. The most important thing is expressing yourself, exercising your freedom and your love of art and touching other people with your performance. Feeling it and making others feel it. The same with writing. Feel what you’re writing and make others feel it, too. Don’t worry about success and failure. Don’t worry about putting all this insane pressure on yourself and you will do better. This is what I have to tell myself. I do want to be successful, I am ambitious, I know this. But when I think about how short life is, and when I think about God watching from up above, I do have to laugh a little at myself. Enjoy life, that's what matters. If success is meant to happen, it will. I still don’t know exactly what I believe in terms of free will and fate, but I think that we have free will but God knows ahead of time what we’re going to choose. He doesn’t determine it, but he has the power of foresight. I like to think we have control over our lives. But there are so many more important things than being individually successful. Like having close friends you care about, to help you enjoy the good times and help you get through the tough times. Like having a loving family, first and foremost, to support you, care for you, advise you and love you. Making someone’s life better. The life of a parent, a sibling, a child, a friend. Developing your soul. My grandfather thinks this is the chief end of life, to develop the soul, and I agree. We have souls, human beings. And we can choose to develop them or not. We don’t develop our souls by being individually wealthy or successful or ambitious; we do it by making sacrifices, by pursuing and gaining knowledge, by helping others and bettering their lives. Life is so much more simple than we make it, and it’s downright laughable the ways in which we complicate it with so many trivialities. Explore, enjoy, express yourself, and learn and grow. Seek out challenges, but keep life simple. As I’m writing this, I’m laughing at myself on the inside because I know that I overly complicate my life in so many ways and I wish I didn’t, but I think I’m going to have to grow older before I truly understand this. Right now, I’m concerned with finding a steady, stable job that will also allow me to pursue my dreams. But there’s no reason to be overly concerned. I have so many people helping me and watching over me, and most importantly, I have God looking out for me, so how can I go wrong? I may go astray, yes, but not entirely. I will find my way back, with the help of my supporters and my guardians.
So often, I dread the task of writing. It seems so daunting. I look at the work of other authors and am downright intimidated by its genius. I want to do the same thing, achieve the same greatness, but why put that kind of pressure on myself? Did they? I don’t know. I doubt it. I bet they were just writing what they felt, doing the best they could, and I bet many of them were surprised when they became as great as they did. Just write what you feel and don’t worry about writing anything else, because nothing else is worth writing. There’s really no need to dread the process. If you dread it, it’s tough to enjoy it, and if you don’t enjoy it, what the hell is the point of doing it? Work hard and do your best, but do not dread what you love to do. That’s what I try to tell myself. It’s funny because I’ve heard another writer admit to having this same problem. She was talking to my class, and saying that she sits in front of her computer and furiously writes a scene, then looks for something—anything—to distract herself. She goes surfing on the internet, reads a news article, goes into the kitchen for a snack, sits back down, and that voice inside her head goes off. Write another scene, it says. She debates in her mind whether to comply. Finally, she agrees. Write another scene and then you can read another article. So she furiously bangs out another scene. She dreads the process, but loves it at the same time. She’s the executive producer of "Grey's Anatomy." Doesn’t it make you feel so good when others are going through the same thing you are? It really does. Knowing that someone so successful experiences the same dread when writing as I, an amateur, do, gives me so much confidence in my own ability. It lets me know, hey, this is normal, it’s part of the process. At the same time, I try not to feel it, and I think it’s best not to, but it still helps to know that other people further along than me are still struggling with it. It lets me know, it’s okay if several years down the road you’re still struggling. Life is about struggling. Working hard, trying, succeeding, failing. But it’s also about enjoying. One must not be struggling so much that there is no time for enjoyment.