Many people have asked me what inspired me to write my book. To this, I don’t really have the answer I think they’re all looking for. An answer that describes a deep personal motive that drove me to create and publish a book. Don’t get me wrong, each poem in my book has its own inspiration, but the inspiration for the entire book itself, beyond wanting to share my poetry, is quite simple. So, why did I decide to publish a book of my personal thoughts and poetry? To this, I answer, “because I wanted to and because I can.”

I’ve always talked about writing a book. I used to say, “I want to write a book someday. I don’t know what I would write about, but I want to write a book.” Little did I know this dream would be realized so early on in my life. Moreover, who would’ve thought that it would happen in my junior year of college, while taking a break from studying, in my little apartment around midnight. I remember that night clearly. I got up from studying, gathered all my notebooks, started paging through, and marking my favorite poems. I later messaged one of my friends who did some graphic design work and started brainstorming what the title and book cover would look like. That night, I don’t think I slept. I continued researching Amazon’s self-publishing tool, Kindle Direct Publishing. About two or three weeks later, I had myself a completed manuscript and a couple of months later, my friend sent me the finished file of my book cover. However, it took me a little over a year to actually publish my book and share it with the public.

Initially, I had all this drive to publish a book but as I came closer and closer to finishing it, fear took over and my manuscript ended sitting in my laptop, untouched, for almost a year. It wasn’t until I brought it up with some friends and they asked me “what are you waiting for?” that I began thinking about it again. A couple of weeks went by and so I asked myself, “What AM I waiting for?” I pulled my manuscript back out, looked it over and published it. Believing in myself enough to publish this book has been one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done for myself. It’s connected me with people far and near. I’ve received messages from strangers about how I’ve inspired them to write or that my words resonated with them—so much so that they feel a little less alone in this world.

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Too often in life, we hold out on doing the things we want to do because of multiple reasons— it’s not the right time, our work isn’t good enough, or the worst thought of all, what if we fail? The list goes on and on. If we just take a moment to step back and believe in ourselves and our work, so many amazing things can happen. There are people waiting for you, waiting to be inspired by you and hear your thoughts, people you may not even know. Life is a cycle of trial and error. So, my advice to you all is two-fold, 1. Surround yourself with people who you can confide in when it comes to your dreams and ambitions. Sometimes all we need are people in our lives who see our potential before we do and give us the push we need. 2. Whatever you want to do in life, go for it. March ahead towards that goal and don’t look back. Sure, it may take a couple of tries before you get it right or it may not work out, but at least you’ll know you the outcome. In all honesty, success scares me more than failure ever will, but that’s a story for another day.