I Took a Break From Writing Because I Needed to Remember Why I Write

I haven’t written in a while.

This was not because I had nothing to say, no.

Actually, I had plenty.

There were days when something happened and I immediately thought, I should write about this.

I would overhear a conversation.

Notice something strange about life.

Have one of those random thoughts that refuses to leave your head.

Sometimes, I would even open my notepad and type a few sentences.

Then I would stop.

Somewhere along the way, I started asking myself a question I couldn’t take off my mind:

Why am I writing?

Not what should I write next?, what will people click on? or what topic is trending?

But why?, I asked myself repeatedly.

Why do I want someone to give me five or ten minutes of their life to read something I have written?

What do I want them to leave with?

I didn’t have an immediate answer.

So, for once, instead of forcing myself to keep producing, I allowed myself to be quiet and that silence taught me something. I got clarity in the most unexpected ways!

I Don’t Want to Write Just to Be a Writer

I love writing and honestly, I always have.

However, I realized that loving to write is no longer enough for me.

I want my writing to do something.

That “something” doesn’t have to be anything really big or instant!

I don’t expect someone to read one of my articles, close their laptop, resign from their job, move to Bali and completely reinvent their life by Tuesday.

Please don’t do that and blame me (hahaha!).

But maybe, just maybe you read something I wrote and think:

Wait. I’ve felt this too!

Maybe a story makes you reconsider something you have always believed.

Maybe you understand someone differently now.

Maybe you finally have words for a feeling you couldn’t explain before.

Maybe you laugh or even disagree with me completely.

Maybe you send the article to a friend and say,

“This is exactly what we were talking about.”

That matters to me.

Yes, because I think good writing should leave something behind.

A question, a feeling, a realization or even a conversation.

I Have Always Been Fascinated by People

I observe people a lot.

Probably more than I should.

I notice the woman who always seems happy but suddenly goes quiet when a certain subject comes up.

I notice the person who says, “I’m fine,” a little too quickly.

I notice how differently people define success.

How some people stay in situations they desperately want to leave because starting again feels scarier than being unhappy.

How people can live in the same city, work in the same building, ride the same train every morning and experience completely different versions of life.

I notice contradictions.

In people, in cultures and in myself.

Living in different environments has made me even more curious about the way human beings live.

I have learned that something considered completely normal in one place can seem almost unbelievable somewhere else.

I have watched people build lives from nothing.

I have watched people stay too long.

Leave too soon and start over.

I have watched people lose things they thought they couldn’t live without and survive things they thought would destroy them completely.

I have experienced some of these things myself and somewhere in all that observing and living, I realized:

There are stories everywhere.

Not just the big stories that make headlines.

The quiet ones too, especially the quiet ones.

Everyone Has A story!

The Woman Sitting Beside You Has a Story

The man you pass every morning has one too.

Your mother has stories she has probably never told you.

Your father does too.

Your colleague who annoys you has a story.

The immigrant trying to build a life in a country where they barely understand the language has a story.

The person who looks successful online but goes to bed wondering where everything went wrong has a story.

The forty-year-old starting again and the twenty-five-year-old who already feels behind have stories..

The woman who left and the woman who stayed have stories.

The person who achieved exactly what they prayed for and discovered that happiness was somehow still missing has a story.

These are the stories that fascinate me, in a strange way though.

Behind almost every ordinary life is something extraordinary that nobody sees and I want to write about those things so badly.

Sometimes, through my own experiences.

Sometimes, through the experiences of others.

Sometimes through the strange, beautiful, frustrating things I observe about life and culture.

I don’t want to pretend I have figured everything out, I haven’t.

I’m not even close.

I’m writing from inside life, just like everyone else; learning, changing my mind, getting things wrong and starting again.

I’m still laughing at things I once took far too seriously and occasionally wondering what on earth I’m doing.

Maybe that is exactly why I write!

We Are All So Busy Moving That We Rarely Ask Where We’re Going

This was probably the biggest realization I had during my break.

We are constantly encouraged to keep going.

Keep working, keep posting, keep building and keep achieving.

Don’t lose momentum.

Stay consistent.

Be disciplined.

And yes, sometimes we need that push.

However, I think there is another piece of advice we desperately need:

Sometimes, stop.

Not because you are lazy or because you have failed.

Just stop long enough to look around.

Ask yourself:

Do I still want this?

Does this still make sense for the person I have become?

Am I actually going somewhere, or am I just moving because I’m afraid to stand still?

That last question stayed in my mind for quite long because there is a difference between movement and direction.

You can be incredibly busy going nowhere, truly.

You can spend years climbing a ladder only to reach the top and realize it was leaning against the wrong wall.

Sometimes, the only way to notice is to stop climbing for a moment.

That is what my break from writing became.

I stopped climbing.

I looked around and then, I remembered why I wanted to write in the first place.

I Want My Words to Matter Somewhere

I used to think the success of writing was mostly in numbers.

Views.

Followers.

Claps.

Shares.

Comments.

Of course, those things matter. Right?

I would be lying if I said writers don’t look at them.

We absolutely do.

There is a very specific kind of pain involved in pouring your soul into an article and discovering that approximately seven people read it.

Three of whom may have been you checking whether the formatting looked okay.

But numbers cannot be the whole story because an article can reach 100,000 people and disappear from their minds five minutes later.

Another can reach 100 people and change something for one of them.

Which one was more successful?

I’m not sure we can always measure that. Can we?

Maybe someone reads a story and finally feels understood.

Maybe someone changes their mind.

Maybe someone finds courage.

Maybe someone calls home.

Maybe someone decides not to give up on something just yet.

Maybe someone realizes,

I am not the only one.

We may never know what our words do once they leave us.

But I think that is one of the beautiful things about writing.

You send your thoughts into the world without knowing where they will land.

Sometimes, they disappear.

Sometimes, they land exactly where they were needed.

So, What Will I Write About Now?

Life.

People.

The things we don’t talk about enough.

My experiences.

Other people’s experiences.

The strange realities of living between cultures.

The things I observe about Japan and the world around me.

Starting over.

Dreams that change.

Careers that stop fitting.

Relationships.

Identity.

Failure.

Ambition.

Loneliness.

Belonging.

The ridiculous things humans do.

The beautiful things humans do.

The questions that keep us awake when everything gets quiet.

Some stories will be serious.

Some will make us laugh.

Some might make you disagree with me, oh yes I would completely understand, believe me!

Good.

I don’t want this to be a place where everyone simply nods politely.

I want us to think.

To talk.

To question things.

To tell the truth about what life actually feels like, not just what it looks like in photographs.

I want to tell stories that remind us that behind statistics are real people and real lives!

Behind cultures are people.

Behind success stories are people.

Behind failures are people.

People are very complicated and that is where the interesting stories live.

This Is Why I Came Back

I didn’t come back because I suddenly developed the perfect content strategy, not at all.

I came back because I remembered something simple.

Writing is how I make sense of what I see.

Maybe, occasionally, something I make sense of will help someone else make sense of something too.

That is enough reason for me to keep writing.

So yes, I’m writing again.

But differently.

I’m not interested in publishing just because it has been weeks since my last article.

I would rather write something worth reading.

Something you remember on your ride tomorrow.

Something that comes back to you during a conversation.

Something that makes you send me a comment saying,

“I never thought about it like that.”

Or even,

“I completely disagree with you.”

Both mean something happened.

There! That is exactly what I want.

I don’t just want readers, I want reactions, thoughts, conversations.

Maybe, every now and then, real change.

If my words can make even one person see themselves, another person, or this strange world we live in a little differently, then writing them was worth it.

Now I want to leave you with the question I had to ask myself:

When was the last time you stopped?

Not because life forced you to, because you were exhausted or because something went wrong.

But simply because you wanted to make sure you were still going in the right direction.

We spend so much of our lives asking:

“What should I do next?”

Maybe that isn’t always the question we need.

Maybe sometimes we should ask:

“Why am I still doing what I’m doing now?”

Perhaps the most uncomfortable question of all:

If nobody expected anything from you, would you still choose the life you are living today?

I think our answers to that question might tell us more than we are ready to admit.