My first word was go and life has been a race ever since. I’ve always had trouble slowing down, stopping, or saying no. First, I don’t want to disappoint people, and second, I hate waiting. Really, I hate waiting. Cell phones, smart phones, the internet, text messages all make life faster for me, for everyone. Friendships last minutes. People move on. Ideas come and they go. One night I’ll have an idea for a screenplay that will change the world. The next morning I can’t remember what I was thinking.

Yet the only way I have improved at anything is through patience. Guitar. Writing. Editing. You name it. You reach out, you learn, you try again, and you start to get the hang of it. The things I have failed at the most are the things I never put any effort into. Some of that was due to sheer laziness. I never picked up an Arabic textbook after my one semester of the language in high school. Other times it was fear. I never learned how to ride a bike, and not because I didn’t try and try, but because I was afraid of falling.

Waiting hurts. It is tough for me to get on that bike and begin from the beginning. But it’s also the only way I can learn. I can go and go and get nowhere. But I can stop and still that noise in my head for a moment and try again. Likewise, just because I don’t have the writing career I thought I would have when I started doesn’t mean I should stop now.

It’s not enough to try something once. If it is something you are passionate about, you can’t just let go.