I started Monday with writing.

I try my hardest to not open my inbox until 11 in the morning. On the days where I am disciplined in this area, I always feel my most productive. I feel alive and at ease with the skin I am in.

I sat down in front of my desktop by 8:30am and already 3,000 words have come out of me. I pace the floors. I reheat my cup of black coffee for the sixth time. I feel more like myself than I have felt in ages.

I wasn’t planning to write anything today in this space but I find that my little writing corner on the internet gets quiet when I get away from the creation process and spiral into trying to be perfect. It’s a tiring game with no winner. I struggle with looking at the lives of other people who seem to have it all together and wishing I could be more like them. I make a fatal error when I get so invested in the filtered lives of others that I forget to invest in my own. My life. My body. My craft. My growth.

Don’t stray from your craft. Don’t look to other people as if they are going to start the car for you. Sit down. Do the thing. Use your keys. It’s your journey and it doesn’t belong to anyone else. In the same vein, no one but you will suffer if you never take the journey. People don’t miss or grieve over the life you didn’t live. That’s your grief and that’s your funeral.

If you are someone who creates things then make life about the creation. You can admire the creations of others but don’t waste your best hours of the day watching other people. Use your hours wisely. Do the work. Even if you only get 20 minutes in a given day to make something, make it happen.

We run around like maniacs claiming there isn’t enough time in the day. So often we bewitch ourselves with the curse of “busy.” We don’t see how much time we kill with scrolling, clicking and liking. I can watch you live your life in 10-second increments or I could create something the world needs. One of those things is going to take no energy at all. The other is going to require everything you have.

If you are feel odd or out of sorts today, maybe you’ve forgotten something. Maybe you got wrapped up in stuff that doesn’t matter to you and you’ve forgotten what you truly love. Time isn’t up though. You can still go back to yourself. You can get a new journal. You can write two glorious sentences. You can open a book. You can start over.

Life hasn’t called and asked you to come and turn in your keys yet. Go while you still have the keys. Go.