With the extra time between semesters the winter holidays has given me, I’ve been working on a few things that are far more difficult than I had anticipated. The Aluvalian novelette is finished, but getting it done was incredibly hard because I couldn’t push myself into “writing mode” (a state of focus normal blog posts don’t require). I’ve been doing a lot of things, but I’ll get into that more on Monday.

Whenever I had reached a big milestone on the blog, I did something different. On my hundredth post, I did a review of my own blog. On my two hundredth post, I talked about my history as a writer and all the stress surrounding it. With both posts, I simultaneously made significant changes to my blog to better coincide with what was going on in my life.

Point is, the cool thing I’ve been trying to do for my three hundredth post has turned out to be a lot more work than I expected. But if anything, it’s made me more resolved to actually make it happen. For one, trying new things is always good, and you should never give up simply because its more difficult than you had anticipated. Second, if that hard thing is something people do all the time, that’s all the more reason, because experiencing what other people go through on a daily basis can be eye opening.

Personal growth should always be a goal for all of us, and trying new things come as a part of that. Even if that thing you try only teaches you why you didn’t pick that career path, you still have more insight to the world around you.

I would go so far as to say that difficult things should attract us more than easy stuff. If we did all the easy things in life, we’d never grow and better ourselves. It’s trials and effort that forges us into who we become, so if we avoid all of those trials, in a way we can never find out who we are.

So whatever hard life choice you’re coming to, or something interesting you want to try, don’t back down from whatever path you want to take simply because it scares you. Especially if you’re under a lot of stress, you’ll be left with one of two conclusions afterwards: either you tried the thing and you failed, in which case you know you’re strong enough take on things despite what’s going on in you’re life, or, if you succeed, you know you can handle whatever life throws at you because you managed to handle that situation you were in and you learned something from it, too.

That thing that I’m planning on trying, starting next week, I’m already pretty certain it won’t be as cool as I want it to be, because its way harder and more time consuming than I had anticipated. But it won’t stop me from doing it. I know its something that I can learn a lot from, and that alone is enough encouragement.