It took me six years to get here – and I’m not talking about my writing skills but the outlook that took so long.
Let me first clarify that I don’t consider myself to be a remarkable blogger but a … good enough one. That is to say, I can get my thoughts across without making the readers yawn or regret finding my blog.
I’m sure that some random bubble-gum-chewing copywriter somewhere can surely arrange words in a better sequence and squeeze more emotions out of people.
But I’m talking about personal wins here
Ever since I began this blog – it has been an important part of my life. I wanted to find a place to pour my thoughts and then I discovered this medium.
I started it from my college library when I didn’t have a laptop. I published the first few posts from my phone. It soon worked as a portfolio and even got me my first job. It became the indirect reason why I had to create a bank account to get my first dollar.
Since then, I’ve been writing occasionally, and I didn’t mind paying for it despite the fact that it earns me almost nothing. Yet, it has been worth the investment considering how it has contributed to my emotional wellness and personal growth.
Though, there has been one thing that has bothered me
I started as a complete noob, which meant that could make mistakes and do more without worrying about the readers’ responses.
But gradually, as I progressed and bought a personal domain, I learned how blogs can be grown and stuff. I got pulled towards that.
Soon I was religiously following the SEO gurus of the internet and meddling with plugins. In a long while, I even started wanting more subscribers so I could be … taken seriously maybe.
I won’t deny that I learned a lot.
But …
That came with its downsides
Writing – what was somewhat personal and pure to me – began to feel like a mere tool that I could use to garner attention. I felt as if I was being dragged farther from the essence of why I had started in the first place.
I began to focus on the wrong parameters.
- I changed my writing style to impress strangers
- I manipulated my words to get noticed by the algorithms
- My headlines got trickier, but they didn’t reflect me
- I measured the stats and got distracted from actual writing
I put my brains before my heart.
Did that work?
To be honest, all those things would have been completely fine (or even necessary) had I been running a commercial blog for a business.
But that hasn’t been my primary intention here. I wanted to publish my thoughts regardless of my insecurities, to document my thoughts over time, and to make my own perspectives tangible.
Did my integrity remain in tact? Nope.
Out of courage and love
After a long, long time I’ve been on my longest writing streak ever. I may have written 60+ posts in the past two months – and that reminded me of why I loved writing in the first place.
I didn’t give a single damn about how people might react. I didn’t check and recheck whether the topics I chose were sticky. I didn’t craft headlines to make people click more.
I spontaneously went along with my heart, choose topics that I felt like writing about, and showed up at my desk each day. The more I wrote, the more I wanted to keep going, and the more I loved it.
And I genuinely believe that I could write for so long because I was doing it with a selfless attitude, without subconsciously calculating what the outcomes would be, with just my authentic and raw emotions at play.