To Do or Ditch; What lies in Between?

It’s been almost a year since I started the National Youth Service Corps Scheme. At the start, I penned down goals, things I hoped to achieve before the end the year. Among all the things I listed, there was an endeavour I did not add, even though it mattered to me most. I was afraid that it was ambitious, too large to handle and that my commitment to it would only lead to disappointment. I started working on the others but was not quite satisfied because I could not deny that something was missing. It tugged at me at every turn and reminded me that I was letting fear run me.

As weeks started counting, I stumbled across an article by Bruce Kasanoff. In not so many words, he asked us to describe ourselves not as we are now but as we see ourselves. That day, resolute, I added writer to my LinkedIn description. I also grabbed my note and added ‘Writing Goals’. Then I broke this down into bits and hung on my visual board. At this time, most of my writings were confined to my journal under the guise of ‘personal writing’. As a first step, I wrote a flash fiction piece (which I looked fondly at some days ago), and shared on Facebook. That was the start of my ‘public writing’. Then I published another on a friend’s site. As my shares grew, feedback started flowing and support systems that I didn’t know existed sprung up. And yes, cash followed. A friend saw my writings and started sending paid writing jobs to me (I didn’t see that one coming).

Then came the idea to turn my NYSC experience to something more. So I wrote word after word, sentence followed sentence, my thoughts took form and a work was born. After many moments of ‘I can do this’ and ‘let’s ditch this’, I published a work of fiction that I absolutely love. Suffice to say, I did beyond what I imagined.

I really don’t know how to end this; maybe to drop a quote or an insightful thought about faith, fear, courage or perseverance, but all I wanted to do was tell this story. All I know is that between do and ditch, there was journey. This journey started with seeing what was not and it came to be.