Why do I want to write? As I go through each day I come upon thoughts and ideas that I want to develop but just don’t get around to doing. Not only that I don’t have the time but I don’t have the ability. My mind and my concentration have been slaughtered over the last few years with bad habits that have left me with the consequences of a fragmented attention span. Between computer routines of work-Facebook-email-work-Facebook-email-work… every five minutes, I’ve been able to avoid the hard work of concentrating on a given task and seeing to its completion in due time. It’s a terrible habit and I’m ashamed of it and I’m hoping committing to writing this blog will be a way of tackling these bad habits head on. Even now, as I am contemplating what to write next I feel my mind being distracted and a pull toward checking Facebook or checking my email. But this is the point. I need to develop better mental discipline and if I set before me something like this, and have an audience to hold me somewhat accountable (please!), then maybe we can get somewhere with this writing thing.

See, a lot of those ideas and thoughts that enter my head each day and of which I’m unable to process sit on the mental shelf and are rarely returned to afterward. Sure, some thoughts, if they matter to me, will circle through again later on but they usually don’t get the processing time they deserve. Most often they simply drift away and I move on to another thought in order to keep up with the distractiveness that I’ve come to depend on. But the thing is, I want to develop my writing and I want to fight the vices that compromise my concentration attempts. I think it’s a worthwhile goal. And I think it will lead to a better story.

Or so begins my reasoning anyway. I also want to write because I want to discover where I’m gifted. All around me there are people who are distinctly gifted with mechanical abilities, abilities to sing, build homes, draw, photograph, whatever. And as I am surrounded by such people the natural question that has come up in my mind over the years is, “So… what’s my niche? Where has God gifted me to bring the most personal fulfillment? To have the greatest impact on those around me?” And I don’t mean to wallow in a pit of poor self-esteem but I’ve never been able to answer this succinctly. It may be true that perhaps I’m not meant to, and that God has gifted me with a variety of different abilities, and I certainly don’t want to throw God under the bus and accuse him of shafting me in the talent department. I recognize that I have gifts, and I know what many of these gifts are, but nevertheless there is this sense of urgency within me to keep seeking out where I am specifically, uniquely talented so that I can spend my energy and invest my life into developing this particular gift. So I turn to writing because I’ve never really taken it on in any serious capacity and I want to find out if there is some God-given ability there that can perhaps be developed, honed, and even used to bring life to those around me.

We’ll leave it at that for now.

Thoughts on this? Do you have something that you want to excel at? What stuff did/do you have to conquer to get there?