Special Note: This is the 400th post on this Writing Blog.
I feel like giving up everyday.
Yep, each and everyday I think, ‘why go on?’
It’s not hard to think ‘why keep doing this shit’ when nothing ever seems to come from it.
Sometimes you get a kind word, someone links to you, you’re mentioned in a blog post or a Twitter message or whatever.
Those moments are important, for they keep you going.
Looking at the other guys is also important. Never forget, that without the competition, there’d often be no reason to keep going.
When you have competing blogs, each putting up different content each day, you get into a one-upsmanship mode where you have to keep going.
Sometimes when you’re running you’ll get into a pocket of runners, and sometimes when you’re driving on the highway you’ll get into a pack of cars.
You keep each other going, and when one drops away you wonder about it, looking over your shoulder or in that rearview mirror.
Did they give up? Are they coming back? How will the group handle this? And…will that be me next, or perhaps most dreadful of all for many…will there ever come a time when it’s only me.
These are all thoughts we think when one breaks off or shuts down or stops producing.
For blogging this is especially telling, for there’s that indelible date stamp, the date of the last blog post, which, if never built upon and just walked away from, will become as permanent as the date on a tombstone – there’s really no difference.
So you need to be a sign in the wind, blowing occasionally with the winds, but always there, ready, waiting, vigilant, omnipresent.
There’s a difference between taking a break and giving up, but only by a degree of time. Some breaks turn into giving up, and some are embarked upon for no other reason than they’re a convenient excuse, a narrow run-around, a commitment but not firm declaration, of giving up.
It’s always easier to step off a moving vehicle than it is to step on one, and for many jumping off that train as it’s leaving the station is the easiest thing to do. Sometimes it’s the best.
I seem to have gotten off the tracks a bit. Ah yes, giving up. Well, I think for now I’ll just give up on this post.
I feel like giving up everyday.
Yep, each and everyday I think, ‘why go on?’
It’s not hard to think ‘why keep doing this shit’ when nothing ever seems to come from it.
Sometimes you get a kind word, someone links to you, you’re mentioned in a blog post or a Twitter message or whatever.
Those moments are important, for they keep you going.
Looking at the other guys is also important. Never forget, that without the competition, there’d often be no reason to keep going.
When you have competing blogs, each putting up different content each day, you get into a one-upsmanship mode where you have to keep going.
Sometimes when you’re running you’ll get into a pocket of runners, and sometimes when you’re driving on the highway you’ll get into a pack of cars.
You keep each other going, and when one drops away you wonder about it, looking over your shoulder or in that rearview mirror.
Did they give up? Are they coming back? How will the group handle this? And…will that be me next, or perhaps most dreadful of all for many…will there ever come a time when it’s only me.
These are all thoughts we think when one breaks off or shuts down or stops producing.
For blogging this is especially telling, for there’s that indelible date stamp, the date of the last blog post, which, if never built upon and just walked away from, will become as permanent as the date on a tombstone – there’s really no difference.
So you need to be a sign in the wind, blowing occasionally with the winds, but always there, ready, waiting, vigilant, omnipresent.
There’s a difference between taking a break and giving up, but only by a degree of time. Some breaks turn into giving up, and some are embarked upon for no other reason than they’re a convenient excuse, a narrow run-around, a commitment but not firm declaration, of giving up.
It’s always easier to step off a moving vehicle than it is to step on one, and for many jumping off that train as it’s leaving the station is the easiest thing to do. Sometimes it’s the best.
I seem to have gotten off the tracks a bit. Ah yes, giving up. Well, I think for now I’ll just give up on this post.
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