Stop making excuses.

That is a message for myself, void. Although considering how much effort I put into SEO and promotion (aka none), I may actually only be speaking to myself here anyway. In which case, hello, future me! If you're reading this, too, that means I can still afford this website beyond 2023, right?

For real, though. Whoever is reading this (present me, future me, heck even you, random "i detect serious bugs in your website code" bot): Stop. Making. Excuses. I apologize for the Nancy-ass punctuation there, but sometimes it's really hard to accept that you might be the biggest obstacle in your never-ending hunt for happiness. Over everybody else.

Today, for example, I tiptoed toward the idea of continuing my IG poetry project with new branding. Instead of the pieced-together cell phone video shots I had originally planned out, why not try a stylized stop-motion animation for the longer poems and stick to an artistic still image for the micropoems? This could make a lot of sense. Part of my creative block, after all, is an intense displeasure with my current art direction. Re-branding the entire project could help salvage it, or at least breathe some life into my motivation to try. I'm already weeks late on my original deadline anyway, so taking the time to learn and complete the work for a design I'm actually proud of wouldn't be a big deal.

However, after all of this thought, I ultimately reminded myself that my lack of graphic art skills, social media phobia, and ongoing writer's block would make the idea impossible to execute. After all, I don't know the first thing about choreographing stop motion, and my Final Cut Pro skills are so minimal at this point that there's a high probability that anything I do figure out won't meet my own standards, much less the standards I set for my IG poetry page. On top of that, there's no way I possess the diligence to sit myself down and properly learn how to execute what I'm imagining, and if I chose to go the more logical route of hiring a professional animator, I don't have the money to pay them. So that was that.

Unfortunately, brainstorming the "what ifs" for me often ends at walls like this. As soon as I realize I'm currently incapable of doing something well, I hit the brakes. It's the same story with applying to PhD programs. It's the same with selling products I already made on Etsy. It's even the same with people. There's a reason I haven't seriously dated in over a decade... In my defense, college continuously exploded what little trust I had in men, so I can understand half of my hesitation there, but there I go making excuses again...

Maybe the secret is to push past the point of "that's not possible," acknowledge the valid reasons for hesitating, but then continue to come up with creative alternatives. While it's certainly a challenge that I don't know how to do stop-motion, and learning how to do it well enough for my own perfectionism may very well be unfeasible within the next year, why not take a handful of creative still photos instead? Why not play around with the stop-motion ideas on a platform with less personal stakes? Though I may not have funds for a class, why not look for artistic meet-ups? Exchange ideas with other creatives who actually know what they're doing? Just because I may lack social skills doesn't mean I can't be social...

As a very off-the-social-media-grid person, I know that posting my poetry project on Instagram wouldn't make me happy. But finishing what I started and knowing I put everything into that final product definitely would. These excuses I make for myself, however, are an ongoing hindrance to the scope of my potential accomplishments. By excusing myself, I don't have to try, I don't have to go out there and be uncomfortable... I can just stagnate—broke and unknown—in my parents' home because it's an acceptable thing to do. The only thing to do, I'll have myself believe.

But I don't want my story to plateau here. And what scares me is that I can see it happening way too easily. I am an expert at falling back, disappearing, and letting the universe dictate the rest. Because of the excuses. Because failure is waiting just outside my bedroom door. But guess what, self? Despite doing everything in your power not to encounter failure, you still failed anyway. In many ways. The failing happened. It was always a given. But life isn't. And if you keep making excuses, you're gonna blow the only shot you have at it.

Pressing further on that self-to-self scolding, though: comparatively, you are extremely healthy and extremely lucky to not have to stress about any of your basic needs getting met. You were born with a shameful amount of entitlement, and that's not including the fact that you look skinny and white in a time and place where being skinny and white keeps you safe. Why the hell are you wasting so much time while you're (still) this healthy and this incredibly lucky on finding excuses to not live?

Nothing and no one that you want to happen will ever happen unless you at least attempt to make it happen. Try to make sense of that one. Until next time, sleepytime gal. That's an Oxenfree reference, future me (in case the night terror demon took all your memories of that game as compensation for its heroic effort to not possess your body while you sleep)