“It is we ourselves who must answer the questions that life asks of us, and to these questions, we can respond only by being responsible for our existence.”
Viktor Frankl on the Meaning of Life
Early July last year I decided to commit to publishing a blog post every Tuesday. Back then I would have never imagined that I would write a blog, let alone stick with it for over a year, but I was inspired by Austin Kleon’s book Show Your Work and how Ramit Sethi turned a blog into a multi-million dollar business. To me, writing a blog seemed to be something worth doing even if nothing came of it.
“A blog is the ideal machine for turning flow into stock: One little blog post is nothing on its own, but publish a thousand blog posts over a decade, and it turns into your life’s work.”
Austin Kleon (Show Your Work)
So every week I would try to write about a topic that I would want to flesh out in one of my future projects, but if I couldn’t meet the deadline then I would release a personal post instead. I didn’t need to fact check or research my own thoughts on things, so they were much easier to produce than the other posts.
At first, I felt that sharing my personal thoughts was indulgent, lazy, and narcissistic, but looking back those have become my favorite to read. It’s fun to get to know a previous version of myself, especially one that I’m willing to make public. Reading journals, songs, poems, and other personal works is cool, but there’s something different about reading my own public writing – it’s like I’m getting to experience what I’m like through other people’s eyes.
When I first started posting personal posts, I felt that I was polluting my work, especially since I would post them just to keep a deadline and I failed to complete another post on time. Looking back now, I can see that it’s not pollution, but evidence of my evolution. This week I was slightly on track to writing another post that would advance my projects, but I felt a pull to write a more personal post instead. (I also felt the pressure of knowing that the next two days I would be working overtime & I’m not feeling up to that right now).
I wanted to give myself an opportunity to step back and reflect on what developing my writing has done for me. I’ve conquered a personal mountain, but not just that, I’ve transformed myself in the process and taken my achievements further than I expected it to go. I owe it to myself to take a moment and marvel at my hard work and sacrifice.
What Writing Has Done For Me
“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
Ernest Hemingway (1899 – 1961)
Blogging has completely changed my relationship with doing difficult things and doing them consistently. This switch has given me the reasoning that catapulted my recent physical fitness revolution. I would think things like “If I could blog for a year, then I could definitely do a workout today” or “doing these workouts are easier than writing” and it would be enough for me to get going. Now I’m in (almost) the best shape I’ve ever been in my entire life and it really is because of writing this blog. We see ourselves do things and make conclusions about who we are based on those observations.
I used to hate writing, so much so that I majored in engineering partly to get as far away as possible from essays and reading. I used to see myself as a “math & science” guy so I didn’t need to know how to write papers and read boring documents. (How shortsighted was I?) I was still holding on to that identity when I first started writing. The language I used was mathematical, but I supposed that was just the language I was able to express myself with.
Today I pride myself on my ability to speak my mind and explain myself. I have a broader vocabulary that allows me to express my thoughts more clearly and accurately. I used to believe I was well-spoken and articulate, but I see now that I’m not. Human beings are capable of having thoughts so complex that they transcend their linguistic abilities and I’ve been using writing as a means to access the ability to communicate these complicated thoughts. Now I know enough to know that I will never consider myself as well-spoken or articulate as I’d like to be or as I’d need to be. The complexity of our thoughts has no upper limit and as my linguistic skills improve, so will my capacity for thinking.
My writing used to be short and choppy. It’s no surprise though because I didn’t have access to the language I needed to properly express myself. I also didn’t realize how much communication I assumed would translate when I started writing. When we’re writing we have to spell out every little thing, I needed to stop assuming the reader would “just get what I mean.” Now, I’ve branched out – my thoughts and writings are more thorough than bef0re. For a long time, I had to try hard to lengthen my responses to things, but now I find that I have to try harder to keep things short.
This blog has helped me form my thoughts together. Writing is truly the most sophisticated form of thinking. Now that I’m better at writing, I’m a better thinker and a better communicator. I say um and other filler words less often. People have complimented me on my way with words, even though I know I could be way more articulate, blogging has made me more linguistically adept than the average person and gives me an edge in the everyday conversation.
Since I knew that writing often will improve my thinking, I originally used my blog as a stepping stone for me to refine my ideas to build an effective and lucrative online course, but over the past year and some change, it’s evolved into so much more. It still carries the original purpose of refining my thoughts for my future courses, curriculums, and books, but it’s also become a place for me to share my personal thoughts, transform my identity, and draw confidence.
My blog has given me access to unbelievable opportunities beyond my wildest dreams. It’s been the cornerstone for my internet entrepreneur adventures – which has shown me that as long as we’re alive in the 21st century, we can create any life we want for ourselves. I can be lil ol’ Chris from Temecula and do all the things my heart desires. I’ve been able to become a music producer, and actually earn money from it! I haven’t been able to create a livable wage yet, but that’s in my crosshairs. It’s been a dream of mine to put Music Producer on my tax forms and this year I can finally do it.
But it doesn’t stop there – I want this blog to be the bedrock for my work as I move into the educational field as an up and coming expert in learning and education. So far, things are going according to plan.
This blog has given me the confidence to talk about myself as an expert, which has given me an opportunity to get my works in schools across the United States. Writing this blog has changed how I see myself consequently changing my role in the community. Because I write about the topics I write about, other people see me as a more reliable and knowledgeable tutor than the average which means people will be more likely to listen to my opinion. However, even if they don’t see my work, I have my thoughts straight and I can exude the presence of an expert.
My blog has shown me that anyone can be a writer – shit, if I could be a writer, then anyone can be anything. Seriously. That’s how I’ve been combating my imposter syndrome when it comes up. I think to myself – “I literally became someone who writes a blog. Chemical engineering-math wiz-book hating-Chris learned how to write consistently. So I can do _______.” Honestly, I think everyone should commit to something that they believe is the complete opposite of who they think they are, the growth has been beyond my wildest dreams.
It’s also given me, or should I say, taken from me the ability to pretend like I don’t know better. All of the topics that I’ve written about have forced me to grapple with the fact that I know how to deal with a lot of the things I’m struggling with, which forces me to actually deal with it. Writing these ideas down forces me to know them, and we can’t unknow things. For example, I was never able to stick to things consistently but after writing my Relationship with Myself posts, I “discovered” more than enough reasons to stick to things rather than give up. When I stick to something I know myself as someone who sticks to things and does what they set out to do. When I give up, I know myself as someone who gives up when things get hard. Additionally writing about things like discipline, time management, integrity, identity, habits, and all the rest of it really forces me to operate at the top of my game.
Blogging has given me a beautiful opportunity to live a richer life. It has given me a chance to realize the question “What is the meaning of life?” isn’t the right question to ask. It assumes that life has something to give you, but that’s not a productive way of thinking. I realized the right way to look at it was that life is asking me “What is the meaning of me?” and, because of blogging, I can answer that question more accurately than I was able to before. All the writing and reading I’ve done gives me a wider arsenal to answer that question with more. And from what I understand, the better we can create the meaning of our lives, the richer our lives become. This has probably been the most valuable bit of growth I’ve experienced from writing this blog. Now, I feel as if my life doesn’t seem to have limits and it’s because I’m able to see the marvel that a human is.
Human beings can do anything. Human beings can be anything. The experience of life is always bigger than we think.
Commit to something for a year. Commit to something that isn’t you. Stick to it. Be amazed by your abilities.
