You Are Talented!

“Just because someone else can’t or won’t recognize your talent, doesn’t mean talent isn’t there.” ~Phil Cooke

. I write a lot. I mean at least 3 to 4 hours a day. Sometimes its blogs, other times its one of my books and more recently its academic. I don’t feel my day is complete if I haven’t fiddled with something I’m working on, even if I can’t spend quality time with it on that particular day. I rarely miss a night of writing in my gratitude journal. There is something about taking my thoughts and processing them through the written word that excites and completes me. I love words. . If I’m not reading something for class, I’m reading something for fun. When I exercise, I don’t listen to music, I listen to books. . I say all this to say that, my talent in writing lies in the fact that I produce often, and I enjoy it. Whether other people like it or not is not my business. I have never been big on perfect lines and robust sentence structure or heavy descriptions. I don’t see that style of writing as ever being my goal. But I do respect it. . However, we live in a world where many people believe that writing or painting or singing, must be done a certain way or else it needs to be fixed. Or they belittle it by ranking it against others. I never assume that just because a book, a song, or a painting doesn’t speak to me personally that something is wrong with the art. . One of the biggest mental hurdles an artist must contend with, is the scrutiny of others. Others who don’t and won’t acknowledge the beauty in your “doing” but instead focus on what you’re not getting quite right. There can be many experts on the same subject who all frame that subject differently and one is no more important than the other. Great art is when the artist shares herself, boldly, authentically and generously. . Which means I’m a GREAT writer. . In this life, we have to see our own potential and see whatever it is we produce as a perfect expression of who we are, where we’re at. No comparisons needed. . Nurture your dreams, do the work and your audience will appear. . Love, Jameelah . www.JameelahRaoof.com .