I am Not a Writer

To be told you can write anything makes it hard. The freedom gives you too much room. Seems easy, but really, the possibilities become overwhelming. I am not a writer. I write because that is what I am told to do. I am good at writing, but I don’t enjoy it. I write to impress, to satisfy, and out of necessity. I understand its importance, but I lean towards math and science. I would rather be given a math problem and be told to solve for x. I like to have a definitive answer, I like right and wrong; black and white. The problem with writing is that there is no end, there is no clear stopping point. When the math equation has been solved and the science experiment has been run, I know that I have done what was expected. I know that I have fully achieved the goal, I can feel accomplished. Sure, I can test for more trials or check my answer, but there is still a clear end. Writing, on the other hand, never stops, the endlessness of it is daunting. Knowing that you could always keep writing, adding more, continue editing, or restart is burdensome. Writing has no clear cut-off, it gives the writer too much control over time and effort being put into it. I think I don’t like writing because I am a perfectionist. I could sit and fix, edit, and add over and over again. I obsess over every detail and thought, yet never have the same satisfaction as a simple math problem. I’ll say it again, I am not a writer. I don’t like writing but I do it. I do it because that is what I am supposed to do. I know it is important, but it's just not me. Too much choice, too many options, too much power, and too many opportunities. I am not a writer because I think too much. I am not a writer because I am never satisfied. As I write, I realize, it is not that I am not a writer, it is that I don’t want to write. I don’t like writing because I have trouble measuring my success. I can’t get all the right answers because there are no real wrong ones.