Writing

For as long as I can remember, I have hated writing. Writing, in general, has always been a nuisance for me, especially when it involves me having to think of a creative topic to write about. For some reason, it gives me anxiety and angst. What I dread most about writing is having to come up with an idea to write about and cohesively relaying it into physical words, which leads me to procrastinate on assignments I know I should not put off. Even as I write this blog, I cannot help but nitpick and criticize each choice of word or phrasing. I always end up second guessing myself and doubting if what I wrote will be interpreted with the same meaning that I had intended. Instead of seeing a black page as an opportunity to express myself, I see it as an enemy that wants me to fail.

I have often reflected on where my apprehension with writing emerged from. Maybe it stems from my experiences with learning English as a second language in elementary school. Maybe it is a result of my perfectionist mentality and my inability to be satisfied by something unless it meets all my criteria. Maybe it is due to a lack of confidence that I have in my ideas or opinions, and whether they will be accepted by others. Perhaps it’s a mixture of all of these things.

I understand that writing has tremendous value, whether it is in a professional setting or just a way to organize my thoughts on a topic. Communication is a crucial part of being a student, and being able to write effectively is a great skill to have. But, writing and expressing my thoughts in written word has never come naturally to me, and it is something I struggle with. When I brought up this issue to one of my professors, he gave me a great piece of advice. In essence, he told me to simply write first and edit later. In the past, whenever I wrote, I would not move on from a sentence or a paragraph until it was absolutely perfect. As a result, assignments which should only take 30 minutes to complete took me over 2 hours.

His advice was to first close my eyes for 10 minutes, and write anything that came across my mind, no matter if there were grammatical or spelling mistakes. That way, I couldn’t second guess myself and criticize what I had written. So far, this strategy has worked tremendously in alleviating much of the stress writing gives me. While I may ever completely get over my perfectionist nature, I think that sometimes it is healthy to be a little sloppy and to just let things take their natural course.