52 Weeks 500 Words
This is how it began: Justine (not her real
name) decided to write 500 words (or as near as), anything goes, per week for 52
weeks. She would then submit it for anonymous posting, via me, her friend.
Perhaps a pattern will emerge from her words, but at this stage it’s more an
experiment I have agreed to share in. I’ll attempt to draw conclusions at the
end of this. Stay tuned if this resonates with you.
Week 23
"I’m going to discuss the word euphoria.
The Dictionary definition is ‘A feeling of great (usually
exaggerated) elation’.
And there’s my point. Exaggerated
elation. There are other synonyms, such as bliss, ecstasy, jubilation, rapture,
and excitement (it’s quite the word!) but they do not really describe euphoria.
These others are ‘okay’ feelings, if you know what I mean, while euphoria can
be something else. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, but it should be something
to be somewhat cautious of.
Exaggerated means ‘Represented as greater than is true or
reasonable’ and ‘Enlarged to an abnormal degree’. Synonyms are amplified, enlarged,
magnified, and overstated. Do you see?
Thus, following the logic, euphoria is something a bit
bigger than is entirely healthy.
This happened to me recently, and has to do with my writing.
I finished a piece I’ve been working on for a fair while. See what Elaina has
to say about me and my writing in her progress report, and you’ll understand
this was actually a massive achievement. Hooray to me! I was, in the aftermath,
euphoric. I danced around my little
flat and punched the air like a teenager. This was cause for celebration! I phoned
friends, including Elaina, I phone my brother, I told my neighbours, I even
shared it with the girl at the register in the local shop. Hooray for me.
No one cared, really. I got the ‘well done’ and ‘happy for
you’ of course, but they were less than impressed, if truth be told. The downer
thereafter was terrible. Euphoria led to the worst kind of disappointment,
because I allowed reality to get away from me. I expected too much. I was too happy.
Be wary, friends. Always temper your sense of achievement with
a healthy dose of reality.
Here now I want to thank someone, and she is the one sharing
this post with you. My friend Elaina is also a writer and she completely
understood what had happened to me. She had been there, she knew the pitfalls,
and she was able to offer advice I could work with. She told me to begin the
self-edit, for now I am to take a rough draft and polish it into something
smooth, telling me the satisfaction from that process is often as rewarding,
sometimes more so.
Learn from this, please. Be wary of euphoria. And share what
you have achieved with someone who understands what it means, for there is the
real validation.
Validation: ‘Finding
or testing the truth of something’ and ‘The cognitive process of establishing a
valid proof’. Good or bad for you, what do you think?"
