Be A Kid Again

I went back and looked at some old writing assignments I did in college.  Honestly, it was pretty embarrassing how terrible I was.  I still don’t think I’m a very good writer, but I know I’m a lot better now than I was in college.

One of the assignments I had was to review an essay on writing; particularly first drafts.  Basically, the writer advised that we write without worrying about who was going to read it.  She said that you should let go of responsibility and write as though you were a child.  She said that in doing so, new ideas would come out that may not come out as an adult writer.

Thinking back on it, that’s pretty good advice.  Of course, no college student writes second and third drafts anymore because of computers and procrastination.

I still tend to only write a first draft and edit as I go, which is a time saver, but also limits my ability to fully capture my ideas.  So I guess the writer of the essay was right.

This is not only great advice for writing, but great advice for life.  I think that with the stress that we are all under with jobs, kids, relationships, whatever; we tend to get uptight and limit our own abilities.  I say “we” because I am just as guilty as anyone else.  Maybe we should just relax a little and let go of our stress, at least for a little while. 

We can still get our work done.  We can still be responsible.  We can still do all of the things that adults do.

But we will never be children again.  So go ahead, write a crappy essay if you want to.  Dream up some wild idea.  Run around your front yard shooting a pretend gun at invisible bad guys.

We have the rest of our lives to be adults, let’s be kids again every now and then.