In light of what has been happening on social media these days, I have been struggling to come up with a blog post I am not frightened to make public. On a typical day, I can sit down at my laptop with several ideas and bang away on the keyboard until words form sentences and sentences magically transform into ideas. But my writer’s platform has gone from a sturdy stage to a treacherous landscape where I am leaping from lily pad to lily pad over a crocodile infested pond. I am afraid to write. Something that comes so naturally to me has suddenly become so daunting.

I am not sure when I feel like I lost my freedom to say what I want to say. I cannot pinpoint the moment when I became afraid to offend anyone who reads this blog, but it happened. And then I stopped to really think about how I felt and realized I still have a voice, and there is no one person who can tell me my opinion doesn’t matter. If I allow my writing journey to be guided by anyone other than me, I may as well not write at all. My ideas and opinions may not be shared by everyone who reads what I write but I still choose to send my words into the world, knowing there will always be someone who will disagree and have a strong opposing point of view. That is what life is about.

My mother used to tell me “it takes all kinds to make the world go around”. Thirty years ago, her words fell on deaf ears but, even though she has been gone for almost six years, her words speak louder now than they ever did. Every opinion has a passion behind it. I get that now. And I have to embrace the fact that not everyone thinks the way I do, and that’s okay. What is not okay is feeling like I have to choose my words so carefully that I am afraid to speak.

Words have power, that is a universal constant, but words will always be subject to interpretation. How we comprehend those words speaks volumes about our character. Keep speaking your mind, but know your words will always offend someone and there is nothing you can do about that.