Everyone Should Write - Just NOT a Book! - Matthew Kelly
Everyone Should Write - Just Not a Book! - Matthew Kelly
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Transcript:
"I have often heard authors say, “Everyone should write a book.” Why they say it, I am not sure. Perhaps they are trying to encourage those who feel called to write, but the effect is has on the rest of people is twofold. It either makes them feel less than or places a burden on them that is a difficult one to carry. Many people in the latter group, set out to write a book, commit years of their lives to it, and only a fraction ever bring a book to print. The rest feel in some way like failures, but console themselves with the idea that is was good for them.
I have a different view. I do believe everybody should write, just not a book. One of the reasons to write is because it is one of the simplest ways to express our fruitfulness. It is a generative activity. At every stage of life human beings unconsciously search for ways to be generative. And writing is one of the most powerful, fruitful, and simple expressions of generativity.
So what should you write?
The answers to this question are myriad, but I will give you just three recommendations to get you started.
1. Letters. Emails if you prefer, but to sit down and write someone a handwritten letter is becoming a lost art and a personalize letter in the mailbox has never been more rare or meaningful. Become a man or woman of letters. This is one option.
2. Journal. Keep a journal. It doesn’t have to be every day. It doesn’t have to be for the rest of your life. Perhaps do it one day a week for a year. As the weeks pass, go back and read earlier
entries. It’s amazing how your perspective on your own life will change as you more further away from events. This leads us to think differently about the decisions, challenges, and opportunities before us today, and it also leads us to understand other people and their actions with more compassion and understanding.
3. Keep a Dream Book. For more than fifty years it has been popular for people to write down their dreams when they wake in the morning, and there can be real insight gain through this exercise, but this is not the type of Dream Book I speak of here. In my late teens I started keeping a dream book, things I wanted to do and see, people I wanted to meet, habits and virtues I wanted to develop, places I wanted to travel and see, things I hoped to accomplish, and so many other things. When I write the Dream Manager 20 years later, I encouraged people to pursue their dreams, but first to write them down. There is something very powerful about writing our dreams down. There is something about it that claims them. And once they are written down, we begin to work toward them consciously and unconsciously. Returning to my dream book many years later I have always been surprised at what my dreams were, which ones I chose to hold onto and let go, and how many have come to fruition.
Everyone should write. These are three powerful and practical ways to do that without taking on the immense burden of writing a book. I invite you to try one and allow the generativity of writing to enrich this time in your life and the lives of those around you."
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