“Accept responsibility for your life. Know that it is you who will get you where you want to go, no one else.”
― Les Brown
I’m sure you’ve heard that phrase more than once…”it’s all about you”.
This is a common rejoinder used during an argument to push the focus off yourself when you know you’re going to lose. As aspiring writers, we often hear this complaint from people around us who want us to do something that benefits them, something we don’t want to do.
It’s the kind of phrase that is often offered in a snotty self involved voice, usually by someone who is hell-bent on acting like a spoiled child. And we all know there’s a lot of that going around these days.
Let’s face it. The people want what they want, when they want it.
The truth of the matter is, we have choices. We make them all the time. How you choose determines who wins in any given power play. Generally, that’s what it is. A trick to get you to misspend the time allotted to you. The manipulation of power to make you set someone else’s priorities higher than your own. Will you fall for the trick? Only you can say.
When you get right down to it, prioritizing and managing your time is an essential skill for writers. Like the “stay at home” Mom, writers are perceived by others to not be working. Laughable, I know, but true.
So really, the choice of how you spend or prioritize your time is up to you. Whether or not you write every day, is up to you. Whether or not you finish the book, is up to you. Whether or not you really learn the craft, is up to you.
Accepting responsibility for the choices you make in life, and deciding consciously what you truly want to accomplish, and what that might be worth to you–what you are willing to invest in any given achievement, is always up to you.
Choose wisely.