December 20 – Beyond Avoidance. What should you have done this year but didn’t because you were too scared, worried, unsure, busy or otherwise deterred from doing?

It wasn’t just 2010. It was the same goal in 2009.

Back when I first saw Randy Pausch’s The Last Lecture, I told myself that I would achieve my childhood dream of writing. And I don’t just mean writing in this blog. My excuse for years has always been that I had writer’s block. That when I was 10 years old, suddenly my mind changed and the flow of creativity disappeared in a snap. Lighting.

Realistically, it was probably just my brain growing as my logical side took over. I excelled in logical things—solving problems. Math and science.

And yet, that creative side of me has been screaming all this time and I have been looking for a way to quell it.

2010 was supposed to be the year that I wrote something…and sent in a submission somewhere. The New York Times Modern Love column?

On my trip to Hong Kong and Vietnam last year, I started writing something in a large blank book that I got for that purpose. But I never finished. I started it—I looked at and as the plane rumbled on and on…I blamed headaches, nausea…

And I never returned to it.

2011. I’ll try this time. Especially since there are clear submission guidelines now. But yes, the topic first.