Relax.

That’s constantly the advice I get from friends and family. I seem to go around life feeling like I need to meet lots of expectations every day.

After 30 years of living in this planet, I’m starting to realize that’s just worthless. All I need to do is relax and enjoy my own journey. It’s not about expectations and adding pressure on myself.

My lack of relaxation reflects on the way I write. When I look back on my days in the university, I clearly remember my professors giving instructions on the kind of essay they wanted us to write. This kind of writing was pretty much scientific and informative. There was no room for creative styles. It had to align to their standards in order to get a good grade.

As time went on, I sort of became good at writing scientific-academic pieces. I used citations, I looked for reliable sources to backup my ideas and learned how to omit personal opinions. There’s nothing wrong with that; however, I think I took this too far because I struggle to write blog posts or pieces of fiction.

I feel like I need to keep pleasing my professors and show them that I have at least three reliable sources to make up my characters’ personalities. Writing in my own words has become such a difficult endeavour because I’m still thinking about formalities.

I still think that my professors are going to grade that.

All I need to do is relax. Those days are over. I’m on my own, and now I can do whatever I want. They’ve probably forgotten that I once was their student. Who cares?

Relax. Breathe.

When I’m writing, I am my own boss.