Are you up for the challenge?

Date December 1, 2009

Reading Alan Levine’s blog post entitled “What? Another Do X A Day Project?” this morning got me thinking. See, I participated in National Novel Writing Month in 2004, 2005, and 2006, and last year I spent several evenings surfing through Alan’s (and D’arcy’s) 365 Flickr challenge. I knew nothing about this challenge and thought anyone who wanted to shoot a photo a day for a year would be crazy, but as Alan wrote, “I find these challenges very rewarding, especially the ones that you convince yourself that you can’t do before you try.” It’s true.

Today, a few hours after reading that post, it got me thinking again as I discussed Into the Wild and Chris McCandless’ foolish journey into Alaska that ultimately killed him. We challenge ourselves with those journeys we’re not sure if we can finish. Sometimes we don’t, like the young person who is not up for the challenge for a full year of AP and “drops down” to onlevel (most of whom come back later and tell me, honestly, that they’d made a bad decision). Sometimes we do, like my wife who isn’t an avid book reader and less of a writer (although I LOVE when she does because she’s hilarious!), who has just finished her own National Novel Writing Month novel.

We have experiences that make us who we are. These define us. They are rites of passage. For Chris McCandless, it was his “Great Alaskan Adventure”. For Alan, it’s currently the PF Chang’s Rock ‘n Roll Marathon here in Phoenix this winter. For others, it could be getting a driver’s license, going away to college, turning 21, or a first job. For me, it could be a blog post a day for all of December. It could be finishing my own 365 day challenge which included my own face in each photo, or it could be editing 2004 novel that I’d like to share with others to get feedback from people more successful than myself, so I can be more like them because maybe I am up for the challenge of publishing. Maybe I will succeed or maybe I will fail, but I will try and I will not give up.

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Category Posted in AP Lang, blogs, nostalgia, reviews