Why Won

So... this morning, I had this urge to write.
Not about creativity or personal development or anything else business-related.
Just stuff.
Life stuff.
But I made this commitment to myself at the beginning of the year not to blog about anything personal on my business site.
Because all that personal stuff is muddying the waters over there.
And quite frankly those waters are muddy enough on their own.
And yes, maybe I should be writing a book.
But I hate the word should and the truth is I don't want to write a book right now.
I may never want to write a book.
And if I've learned anything it is that I don't have any better luck at getting me to do something I don't want to do than anyone else does.
I cannot be bossed around.
Even by myself.
I want to write blog posts.
I love writing blog posts.
I don't understand it completely.
It's got something to do with my short little span of attention and my need for instant gratification.
It's also got to do with my own unique brand of creativity.
But that subject is being covered on my other site.
So, enough about that.
Anyway... I woke up this morning wanting to write about how 2014 feels different now than it did just two short weeks ago when it first began.
Back then it was shiny and full of hope and possibility.
Back then I was completely convinced that it was going to be my year.
That was before a snow storm and several days of subzero temperatures turned my kids' two and a half week winter break into an almost four week winter break.
It was before I caught my oldest son's cold/flu/whateverthehellthisis.
Now, things don't seem so shiny and hopeful anymore.
I'm sure this too shall pass.
It always does.
But in the meantime, I found myself wanting to open the front door and yell, "Hey! Is there anyone else out there feeling like 2014 suddenly took a big old nosedive?"
And blogging has always been how I've done that.
At least for the last six years, anyway.
Then I remembered Rambling Shmee.
Rambling Shmee was my first blog... how this whole writing thing got started.
Back then, I just sat down from time to time and wrote about my life for no other reason than because I wanted to.
Just like I wanted to do this morning.
At first I told myself all the reasons why I shouldn't do it.
But when I took a good hard look at those reasons, they all boiled down to one real reason...
Fear.
Some things never change.
I am still just as scared of doing the things I want to do as I ever was.
Yuck.
Fear sucks.
But here's the thing...
Some things do change.
And the thing that has changed for me is this: I'm not afraid of fear anymore.
Fear is nothing more than a litmus test designed to measure one thing - how badly you want something.
It's a risk versus reward mechanism, pure and simple.
In this case, the risks were all based on a bunch of silly what-ifs regarding people reading something I write and then judging or dismissing me for it.
It doesn't take a big reward to counterbalance that, does it?
So, here I am... writing for no other reason than because I want to.
And because the answer to the question why won out over the answer to the question why not.
Now I get to do what I want to do.
I love that.