Daily Practice

A few years ago, I was lost. I was on the hamster wheel of achievement. I believed that I had to make a lot of money in order to do the things that I loved. I believed that once someone paid me, then I would have the permission to be the writer I wanted to be. I put myself at the center of "moving and shaking." I worked for someone who created careers for people and produced work. I felt that if I was in the neighborhood, then some of that would rub off on me. Or that I would catch scraps. I believed that if I was in the eye of the storm, then I would get noticed. Instead, I got blown away.

Today, I spend my days writing. If someone asked if I was doing what I wanted to do, I would have to say yes. I am writing things I want to write. My idea are unfiltered and I am reinforcing the writer I've always wanted to be. Everything I wanted I have achieved. I am a writer. I am writing.

So what now?

I have spent the better part of the past five years in self-reflection. I have built myself back up from a person who only listened to what other people wanted of him. I have spent a life time pleasing other people. And I always believed that once I stopped doing that, then there would be a windfall. And there has been. I got everything I wanted. I know who I am. I live in that truth. I am true to myself most of the time. Like all of us, I succeed and fail in that every day. But my main drive is towards what I want. And yet, I haven't gotten any richer. But what that what I wanted? Or did I want to become the writer I always knew I was. And it isn't about one or the other.

I remember someone saying once that money is an energy. It's not just the physical paper or coin. Money is an energy that indicates what your intention is. And so if I look money as an energy and not a commodity or just having monetary value, then I look at the ways to reinforce what I want to be doing with my life. Being on a bigger stage will allow me to learn more and to expand myself. Being a writer on a TV show will teach me more about producing and about being certain of myself. It will be a test to who I am and to what I believe. And if I fail at it because I am true to myself, while being respectful but not succumbing to the will of others, then I will know it's not for me. But I have to know. I seek out that knowledge not for the rewards, but to fortify my belief.

I want to reinforce what I already know in order to continue to move forward. And in that way, being a paid writer, helps me move towards that goal of self-knowledge and growth. It helps me become the fullest version of myself. The action of it, not the reward of it. For so long, I have been focused on the reward of it because I believed that reward somehow would validate me. The work validates me. Not the paycheck. The paycheck pays for things. That is essential. But it does not validate me.

I have that handled. Every day I wake up to write and then I write, I am validated. Every day I read scripts by writers and impart what I know, I am validated. Every day I get to practice what I know and get to reinforce what I've learned, I am validated. I do that for myself. I don't need an industry to validate me. I need a job to pay me. But I have already amassed the knowledge and I have put that knowledge into practice on a daily basis.

Everyday I work hard to bring my ideas to fruition. I reinforce what I know and what I have learned by doing. I validate myself. Everyday I learn to work faster and more efficiently with the same skill and precision I've always had. For a period of time it was about getting good. And then it was about being better. And now being better is about being just as good--and improving everyday--but being faster and more efficient with limited time. It's about decreasing the margin to which my work suffers the faster I do it. I write a lot because the ideas come. But because I am in the practice of getting the ideas down as they come, I improve my skill and precision.

Being in a writers room, but not as a writer, would put me in proximity and it would familiarize me with the details of what it takes. But by not doing what it takes, I can't learn. And if I'm working 14 hour days in order to be in proximity, all I am doing is being so close, yet so far away. Because I am not becoming a better writer. I am just jockeying for a position that I have not prepared for. I respect everyone I know who came up that way and is doing those jobs. And I'm not saying those people don't get there. They certainly do. But there's more than one way to get there. For me, it's about being precise and fast and I am practicing that every day. And that practice leads to completed drafts of scripts that get better and more precise.

I am doing what I'm supposed to be doing. I am a writer. I do write. And now I have to expose that writing. I could just stay here forever, but at a certain point I would stop improving. Because exposure and playing in a larger arena would then teach me new things that I couldn't possibly know otherwise. At some point, I will become an employed writer. Not because I've earned it. Or because I finally got good enough to deserve it. I will be paid because it will be time. And that is not determined by me. But I'm doing everything I can to declare to the Universe that that is the next step. And that's all I can do. Because regardless, I have already achieved what I wanted. I am a full-time writer.

I am grateful for every bit of knowledge I have learned and applied.
I am grateful for meditation.
I am grateful for stillness.
I am grateful for what I know now.
I am grateful for my own path. 
I am grateful for laughter and encouragement.
I am grateful  for friendship.
I am grateful for help.