If you wish to be a writer, write.

Sometimes you just read something, and it resonates with you. It hits you in exactly the right spot in your soul at exactly the right moment you need it to hit you. Yesterday was that point for me. It’s significant in that it was the 11th anniversary of my friend and teammate Mike Hosey passing away in Afghanistan. The title of this is also something I read yesterday, propelling me to finally start moving forward with this blog project. It’s a quote from Epictetus, a Stoic philosopher, who was a former slave. He never wrote much down, but his teaching survived because his students copied his lectures, which makes this quote all the more poignant in my eyes. Chase your goals and dreams, or at least, that’s what I’m getting from this.

As most of my friends and family know, I have written posts on Facebook and spoken at events over the last several years. Friends and family have liked what I have written for the most part, and I enjoy writing for them. Oftentimes my writings have been about my experiences as a soldier. More often, they have been about the friends I have lost during my time as a soldier. I don’t intend for all of them to be articles about that in the future. I write from my heart and tend to do my best work when there is a deep emotional connection to the topic. Those tend to fit the bill for me and how I like to write.

So before I close out this post, I want to say thank you to all the people in my life who have helped me get to where I am. Thank you to those who have encouraged me and mentored me at all stages of my life. An equal measure of thanks goes to those who have been obstacles and negative influences as well. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for all the good and bad things.

I hope that my writings are worthy of your time and reach you in ways similar to how writing them has helped me improve myself.