Man, number 50 really snuck up on me. If there is one thing I can be proud of over the past few weeks, it is keeping up with this even if a few entries were shorter than I wanted.
Today seems like a good day to answer one of the questions I mentioned yesterday that someone asked me. It looks like this will be the week of “whys”.
Why do I blog?
The last month or so has been a difficult one, and I’ve actually asked myself this same question as I was trying to get a blog written on days with pneumonia or a fever or when I had an emergency at work. It has remained important to me through some tough issues, and I think about it fairly often, so it must matter, right?
The thing is, I started blogging daily on a whim.
I read a blog post from someone (I want to say it was Jeff Goins) about how blogging daily will improve your writing, and I decided to do it.
I blog because enough people have encouraged me to do it that it seems worthwhile, and because the feedback I have gotten tells me it has been useful to people. Texts and emails and phone calls and traffic on my website tell me that more people are reading my blogs than likes and comments indicate, and they are finding it useful.
I like things that are useful to others, so I keep writing.
I have found it helps me work out a lot of stuff that seems to be jammed up in my brain, and it helps me process things a lot of the time. This is a fine line for me. I want this to be honest and worthwhile, but as a counselor I have to be careful with that boundary of oversharing or too much self-disclosure. This forces me to be very intentional about what I share and don’t share, and brings issues to the surface even if I am not writing about them here. This has been difficult and painful at times, but also keeps me from becoming complacent.
I blog because I want to make it to a year with a blog every day, and because it is fun. It gets me energized and moving, and starts my day with an intentional focus.
It makes me do something even when I am tired and feeling sorry for myself, and this makes the tiredness and self-pity go away.
I think it was Joan Baez who said that “action is the antidote to despair”.
After blogging for a while now, I would love to find a way to earn a living doing something like this. It would give me all kinds of time with my family, and freedom and autonomy are really the only things that motivate me, so if that is a side effect of this, then cool.
If not, also cool, I love being a counselor and meditation teacher.
More than anything else though, I blog for the same reason I do everything: because it’s what I do right now.
All of the reasons listed above help shore up why I do it, but in the end, I said I would do it, so I will.
Think of something you are investing a lot of time, energy, or money in. Why do you do it? Is it worth the investment?
Think of something you would like to be doing. What is stopping you?
Thanks for reading.
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