Writing a book has always been something I’ve wanted to do. Not because I love writing, nor is it because I read a lot of books. In fact, I absolutely hate writing. And reading through books is a challenge for me. More accurately, I like the idea of writing a book, but dread the act of doing it.
But it is something I do want to accomplish in life. I know that as long as I keep thinking about it, it’ll never get done. As a result of a Spark group I’m in (I meet with friends once a week to take intentional risks towards our dreams), many of my action steps over the past few weeks have been towards writing a book.
So what will this book be about? Well, I don’t really know yet. I do have a title though. A few years ago I was talking with a friend and he gave me the analogy that each day is a blank canvas that we create on. So in my old car, I used to have a piece of paper taped to my dashboard that said, “create something beautiful today.”
That’s the title. As another intentional step, I’ve written out a brief synopsis of the book:
How is today any different from yesterday, or the string of days before that? Would you be satisfied if all your remaining days played out just like today? We’re creatures of habit. We repeat routines day in and day out. We fall into established patterns because they’re easy to repeat and difficult to change. Altering the trajectory of our lives, much less the course of a day, seems overwhelmingly impossible.
Yet the tragedy is that we’re under the impression that life just happens to us. We either believe that the events of a day are too short to be significant, or that those events are beyond our control.
Thomas Paine, an author who’s ideas contributed to the American Revolution, wrote “We have it in our power to begin the world again.” He was speaking of the unique opportunity to leave behind old power structures and create new environments of freedom. We have that opportunity in the present day, to remake our world.
You see, no event in this world just happens. It is the result of the predetermined actions of men and women. Each day is newly created by our thoughts and our decisions.
Today is a blank canvas. Each action and event in your life, whether by immediate intention or the consequence of routine, is forged by you. You don’t have to paint the same picture you did yesterday. You can create something new, something beautiful, in your life, and send the trajectory of your world into a bright, new future.
So what’s next? I’m not quite sure. As I’ve said before, I really hate writing, and the thought of writing an entire book is like my worst nightmare. So, I’m just going to start writing bits and chunks on this blog.
I guess you could say you’ll see the book as it’s being written out, and give your thoughts on how it’s shaping out. Want to follow along? Just subscribe below.