How I Finally Found The Courage To Write For Thought Catalog

I have a love-hate relationship with Thought Catalog.

Love, because it makes me think in the most unlikely ways. Hate, because it’s the only reason why I waste endless hours on Facebook at inconceivable times of the night. (Damn you Facebook, you know me too well.)

Having devoured more articles than I care to admit, I have become well acquainted with the mental process of reading a Thought Catalog post, which usually goes something like this:

‘Wow, you’re SO right! You totally get me!! Wait… I could have written that.’

The thing is, I’ve always toyed with the idea of being a writer (and a successful painter, influential psychologist, and all-round superstar). I’ve gazed enviously at the columns of my college newspaper and googled what it takes to publish a novel, but it was always an idea I dismissed as unrealistic. Indulgent. Entitled, even.

The years went by and the idea stuck with me like an itch I couldn’t scratch. It crept up on me when I least expected: in line at a coffee shop, on a particularly long subway commute, while taking an ironic selfie (just kidding, I never take ironic selfies).

Write. Write. Write.

I even made a pledge with my college roommate: one day, we would both get our shit together, submit our best work to the New York Times, they would instantly hire us and we’d live happily ever after. That took care of the voice in my head for another year or so.

So it went, until something incredible happened. It became 2017.

The power of the New Year never fails to astound me. Like, just because there was an arbitrary resetting of the calendar, I am now a brand new person who is twice as likely to accomplish all my life goals. Yet, that’s exactly what happened.

I decided I had had enough. I was going to write an article for Thought Catalog. Now.

—and that’s when the doubts came flooding in. What if they don’t accept it? Or worse, what if they DO?

The only thing worse than fear of failure is fear of success. It wasn’t that I didn’t think I could do it—it was that I didn’t think I deserved it. In that moment, I knew that if I wanted a life that was more spectacular than it was safe, I was going to have to face the uncertainty and fall a few times.

The truth is, there’s not enough time to be afraid. You cannot be truly fulfilled by compromising who you really are. So pick up that pen, or paintbrush, or whatever it is you’ve always dreamed of doing, and do it.

Trust me, you won’t regret it.