After only 8 years of telling myself I was going to start writing consistently and publicly, today marks the first real step forward. Are these thoughts supposed to change the world? No. Do I hope they help just one reader? Yes. Will I have more than one reader? Highly unlikely.
The single hardest part of this will be to avoid writing what I think people will want to hear. Sharing insights that I’ve learned from experience is very different than trying to be seen as an insightful person.
I’m certain there will be more than a few times where I hit “post” on something that quickly reveals itself to be parroting someone else exactly, or is such a try-hard pseudo-intellectual self-improvement nonsensesoup that it registers as faint flatulence in the blogosphere before fading away forever. I don’t improve my thinking and I don’t help anyone else if all I’m doing is adding to the discourse that’s already been had.
So why now?
I want to see how much public accountability changes my behavior.
I’m not sold on telling everyone your ambitions being a surefire motivator for action on those ambitions. How many people do I know that have told everyone they were going to do something and 5 years on they’ve either stopped talking about it or people have told them to stop talking about it?
Maybe being even more public about it and memorializing it in permanent places like Linkedin will push me over the hump.
I enjoy it.
I considered myself a good writer and every post I’ve tried to draft out is awful, so clearly I have some muscle memory to get back.
Is there anything I’m afraid of?
Eyerolls
“What an idiot”
Future employers, investors, or collaborators read this negatively and it interferes with “advancement” in any form
Being tied to opinions here for the rest of my life.
1. and 2. don’t matter practically (though very much emotionally). 3. If these are thoughtful musings that reflect a genuine desire to share helpful experiences, it should actually help attract people who I would actually work very well with. 4. It’s a risk you see in politics all the time, but if these posts can also shine a light on progression of thought, then really all it reveals is a mind in motion, one with better and better reasoning as my experiences grow. Should I not hope that my thoughts in 20 years are better than they are now?