A new writing assignment

We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other. Our age yields no great and perfect persons. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

This is my first entry into the Trust 30 writing challenge.  It's a 30 day writing task meant to help participants look into themselves and trust themselves more.  The above quote was emailed to me along with the writing assignment to imagine I had 15 minutes left to live and write the story that needed to be told.  That's a wide open assignment.  It seemed right to reflect on what happened in the past and compare it to the present. I'm not sure if what I wrote had much to do with the above quote.  I just wrote what came to mind in a 3rd person story form. See the blue paragraphs below.

Once there was a girl living in a small town. She went to school with the same people every year. She was called ugly, fat & dumb. She actually did pretty well in school, but she doubted herself. She often didn't like her work. Sometimes she didn't allow herself to be creative. She had internalized the negative messages from her peers. She expected to be criticized. When she went to college she still had doubts. She isolated herself by playing a lot of online games.

Eventually she found a church group who cared & prayed for her. Slowly but surely God brought her out of the negativity. She began to feel better about herself and her abilities. However, she still wondered about her place in life. She stood at a crossroads, unsure of which direction to go. Her head was clearer of the negative fog that she had been under as a child & teenager. She was indeed grateful to God for revealing little bits of His grand love for her. Unsure of what the future held, at least she had positivity in her life to point her in a direction, any direction that she chose.

Blog Resurrection

Ok, so this Reticent Squirrel blog has been dormant for about 3 years. Dang. I guess I never felt as though I had anything to say. That's part of the problem. I used to find fault in a lot of things I try to write. I don't consider myself a writer. I sometimes self criticized random thoughts I put in a blog. I just spent a few minutes reviewing my old posts. They aren't half bad. I don't know why I sometimes self criticize.

I decided to resurrect this blog because of something I saw on Twitter. Yes I'm on Twitter now. I express myself daily, 140 characters at a time, lol. I follow a lady named Tricia Huffman. I learned about her through Jason Mraz. It's official. I'm a big fan of his! (I saw him live in concert since this blog post, borrowed his cds from the library, put them on my ipod and watched plenty of his live Youtube clips.) Tricia toured with Jason Mraz as his "Joyologist". I guess she coached him on yoga & nutrition? I'm not sure. @BeingTricia tweets a lot of positive affirmations. They've helped me in one way or another.

Well, Tricia Huffman posted an article on her blog about a 30 day writing challenge based on a Ralph Waldo Emerson book called Self Reliance. I know almost nothing about Emerson & his writings. I decided to take the writing challenge though. Why not? I can think about my life and circumstances. I can post my reflections here. Here goes...