Why Blog?

"Don't let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game."

It's a quote that has been running through my head for the past couple of weeks. But tonight, it's been running through my head constantly, if only in concept and not exact words.

The forefront of this thought comes from reading a blog post earlier in the evening, where the author talks about blogging, and all the pressures that come from it....if you let them.

I admit it that I'm not a person to start trends. I tend to start them kicking and screaming, literally resisting 'joining the bandwagon.' until...I. ME. I. I decide to join in. Then, more often than not I jump in full force and try to convince everyone else to join with me as I seriously love whatever thing I was resisting doing.
Examples? Oh..Sherlock, Harry Potter, and Blogging come to mind. (yes. I didn't join the bandwagon with Harry Potter until the 5th book was nearly out.)

Specifically. Blogging. I'd seen my extended family posting. Some friends posting. And was like. O.o what would I say? What would I write? Who would read me? But...I want to do it.

However, I didn't try out blogging until my Great Grandma Maren wrote me an email saying that she loved my writing and that I should share it with the world (At that point I was only writing in the weekly family newsletter.)
I took her words into consideration. -lol she said I should be a columnist at a newspaper or something. I didn't take the newspaper concept seriously, but the writing thing. I did. And since blogging had been on my mind about that point as well. I thought "Well why not?"

Hence. How this blog was born. :)
Looking back at my first post. I could tell that I didn't have high expectations for this blog. It would be a place where I would post things on various topics, and if people read me. Cool. If they didn't. Fine.

And I think that's the key to how I've managed to post consistently for the past three and a bit years.
I wasn't writing for others. I was writing for me.
I still write for me. 

Of course I would be lying if I said that having other people view my blog doesn't matter to me. It does. A lot. I get super excited on days when I have a ton of people drop by my blog. and saddened when only a handful visit me on other days.

Yet, becoming a super popular blogger where I get 5,000 page views in a day was never on my 'instantaneously' list. I knew it would take time to get an online presence. I knew that at first, only family and maybe a handful of friends would read my posts.
lol if it weren't for all the international page views I get on my blog, I would still tend to think only family and friends read me. :) And seriously, I'm okay with that. I never planned to get famous doing this. (I'm still not famous nor do I get 5,000 page views in a day) Hoped for it. Yes. Who doesn't hope to become famous?

And I think...that's why many of my friends/family that I've convinced to join the bandwagon with me and blog....have stopped posting. They didn't become overnight successes. Their posts weren't popular. They felt like they weren't being read, that nobody cared. (or really they got too busy for blogging.) but, if they weren't writing things people were reading, that had to mean that nobody wanted to read them, right?

There in lies the problem. There is no such thing as a 'bad post.'
If it wasn't good, I doubt you'd post it in the first place. You are, after all, your own worst critic. So if you like what your posting. Why worry about what others think? If others read it? Seriously. If you're not enjoying what you're doing...you won't do it. Having the 'pressure' of what others think of your blog...really won't convince you to post. It just holds you back.

Will the words you write on a post change the world? Not likely. Will it influence a single person? Most likely. Even if that person is only yourself.

I admit, I've gone back to old posts of mine. (Mostly because I'm trying to figure out what suddenly made that one popular in the page views) and found them extremely helpful. To the point where I was like "I wrote this?" O.o

So if you want to write.
Forget the fact that others will at some point read your blog.
Forget that they have their own opinions and they won't coincide with yours 100% of the time.
Forget the pageviews.
Forget wanting to be popular.

And blog for yourself. Write for yourself.
If only to relieve stress.
If only to work your way through a problem.
If only to have a place to post picture memories that you can go back and look at.
If only to post something that brought a smile to your face.

It's you that matters in the blogging world. It's you who decides what matters to you.
Once you start thinking about others, their thoughts, their words, their opinions. That's when the fun stops. That's when you freeze. That's when a potential blog success...fails.

If you're not doing it for your own enjoyment...why do it at all?
Becoming famous will happen, or it won't. But at least along the way, you've enjoyed the journey. :)

Until you next read these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi

P.S. Here's the link to the blog post that inspired this post. http://theirown.blogspot.com/2014/01/another-useless-blog-post.html#.Uuh1Ku_n_IU 

P.S.S If you read the post, let it be known, that I love to title my blogs with lines or concepts that sometimes only obscurely relate to the post itself. ;)