All you really have to do is finish

My eleventh grade literature teacher gave our class a final assignment that would change my creative life forever.

We were told to make a capstone project around characters from the classic novels we read during the semester. And the only rule was, just do something creative that expresses your feelings, thoughts and learnings from the books.

My idea was to write a song. Each verse would tell the story of a particular character, the chorus would reinforce the common thread between those characters, the bridge would prepare the listener for the climax, and the final chorus would bring it all home.

The song took a week to write and another few days to rehearse. The process was exciting and engaging and challenging.

Of course, that was all inside my own head. When final exam day came, things were about to get very real very fast.

The entire leading up to fifth period, my insides were a mess. Ruminating about all the things that could go wrong, imagining how ridiculous that song was going to make me look, my anxiety was at an all time high.

When the bell rang, we took our seats. And our teacher looked around and asked who wanted to go first. Not a single hand went up. The class went silent for a good ten seconds. But for some reason, some part of me decided to say, oh screw it, let’s just get this over with. Here we go.

Five minutes later, drenched head to toe in sweat, the last chord of the song was played. And looking up from my guitar, I watched thirty of my classmates give me a standing ovation.

I actually started crying. Overwhelmed with pride and joy, I had never felt so artistic, brave and seen. When the applause died down, our teacher looked around the room, and with textbook comedic timing, she chuckled, so, who wants to go next?

My creative life has never been the same since. Something inside of me changed that day, for better, and for always. That afternoon was my artistic moment of conception. And today, reflecting on the last twenty years of my creative journey, here’s my insight.

When you’re seventeen, writing and performing a song in front of your entire class, about fictional characters from books that most students probably didn’t even read, is such a terrifying, vulnerable, courageous and socially risky act, that all you really have to do is finish.

And you’ll blow everybody away. Including yourself.

Because in that formative moment, the work you do doesn’t have to be good, it doesn’t have to be right or smart or even interesting. It just has to be yours.

You just have to stick yourself out there and own the moment.

What dream in you that serves or helps other would cause you deep regret if you never took the risk to go for it?