It’s a Sunday evening.
I am lounging around on my couch, feet on ottoman, checking my messages.
Which brings me to a surprise to see a message from an old friend. Rather the very first friend in NCR. We connected after many years, and ended up texting and catching up on life for almost 45 minutes.
And out of habit, as if it is the most involuntary action on my part, I suggested him to write a book on his life so far. Not out of pitching my services (lol). But because we all have a story that needs to be out of our head into the hands and heads of the hearts of the world.
Days after that conversation was over, it made me think. Why are smart, capable, supersuccessful people in a mindset of believing they haven’t achieved much, or they shouldn’t write a book about themselves? I am not talking about that friend here (I’d much rather text him than write a passive post), but rather talking about so many capable and super impressive people whose slice of life could make a huge difference to anyone reading, even if it is 100 or 10 readers.
There are so many people I know who have at least 3 books inside of them, but they would rather walk the circumference of the earth three times instead of writing three pages about them/their life experiences.
Which brings me to the real reason:
We all are too scared of being seen. I myself think at least 3x about deleting any post I write about my success stories. It feels scary to tell people what you have been through to get to where you are. Reminds me of what Marianne Williamson once said, “We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be?…There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you…as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
Earlier this week I was re-editing a book of mine I wrote two years back, before sending it for publishing. And I was left in awe of how much I had evolved as a human, as a writer. There was nothing wrong in the book, I am very porud of it, but only the version I was two years back could write that book, not the one I am today.
Why am I telling this to you? When Taylor Swift spoke about re-recording her first 6 albums, she told specifically about Reputation, that “The Reputation album was so specific to that time in my life, and I kept hitting a stopping point when I tried to remake it. All that defiance, that longing to be understood while feeling purposely misunderstood, that desperate hope, that shame-born snarl and mischief. To be perfectly honest, it’s the one album in those first 6 that I thought couldn’t be improved upon by redoing it.”
Who you are now, you would never be. The time to put out the book that is in your mind is now.
Everything else is a distraction to losing your life to scrolling.
