When I was a child, every week at Sunday School we sang "This Little Light of Mine, I’m Gonna Let it Shine." On the other hand, the preacher and my parents loved to say, "Pride goeth before a fall."
Back then I didn’t know what Proverbs 16:18 really said: "Pride goeth before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall." The contradiction of letting my light shine without letting it show left me with a few issues to say the least.
As writers, most of us have a deep sense that we have something important to say to the world. If we believed that our thoughts were of little or no account, it is doubtful we’d be tempted to pick up the pen.
On the other hand, many of us have been schooled that modesty is a virtue of biblical proportions if we grew up in households that followed the Judeo-Christian tradition. Even if we didn’t get preached to, most of us learned that nice people don’t toot their own horns. They aren’t pushy and they don’t brag.
If we didn’t learn these lessons at home or in religious institutions, chances are we learned them in school. Education researchers have discovered that seventh grade is the watershed year for young women. That’s when they learn to hide their science and math skills in order to fit in. Young men don’t have it much better. The middle school male who demonstrated a gift for poetry isn’t exactly looked up to by his peers either.
As adults we learn to compromise by letting our lights shine – but only a little bit. With one hand on the dimmer switch, we strive to express ourselves without drawing too much attention to ourselves. We try not to be too full of ourselves or too fully ourselves. We worry about what other people will think and some of us worry about making other people feel bad if our writing is too good. We worry about what it will mean if we really try our hardest and then don’t live up to our own expectations or those of others.
One place this paradox becomes stifling is in writing critique groups. A few well-meaning, good hearted people gather together to improve each other’s writing. Too often by the third session participants catch middle school déjà vu and spend more energy trying to fit in and win peer approval than they do writing.
The contradiction of being humble to the point of invisibility while trying to let our light shine becomes even more critical when we market our work. We may try to compromise by writing wimpy stories and articles or writing to formula. We might play it safe by submitting our work to low-paying markets because we’re sure they’ll publish us. When people ask if we’re writers, some of us look down at the ground and tell them that we’re wannabe writers or that we just fool around at the computer. We tell ourselves that what we have to say deserves an audience, but we’re too busy hiding our light to get one.
Our lights are meant to shine. That’s what lights do. Sometimes all it takes for us to write more or to write better is to clear out the resistance. Imagine what would happen if you let your writing light do what it does naturally, instead of trying to hide it or dim it in order to be or write like everybody else. You aren’t everybody else. You are yourself. Allowing your light to shine doesn’t require great effort. It does require great courage, the courage to fully be who you are and to honestly express that.
Let yourself contemplate the nature of your light. Write a page about the ways you stop your writing light from shining freely. What specific actions do you take when you are being stingy with your light? Now write another page about what barriers you need to take down so your light can emerge as it was meant to do. If you were more generous with your light, what would you do differently?