This is the 2,286th article I have written in a row since I started on January 7th, 2018. I make a note of this because I had to deal with an archiving issue last night that was an annoying disruption to my process. This caused me to have to go back and re-index several articles that I had written so that I could create a category list for an archive page that I have maintained. While stressing myself out today, debating on what to write about next, I asked myself, “Self, why do you continue to do this?”
I get advice from time to time. You need to grow your audience, they say. They say you need to write a book. You need to have more of a focus in your writing, a niche that can capture a better audience. All good advice, I am sure. However, they miss the most important audience member – me! You see, I have learned to write to myself. I have some vain hope that what I write might encourage, inspire, or provide some provocation in someone’s life. However, the focus is to push myself to greater heights. Everything I write is aspirational, personal considerations that dig deep into my challenges and what is working and what is not in my quest for improvement.
I think I will keep going on this journey. There are many reasons for this, but there have been some seriously powerful developments in my life that are a direct result of my writing each day. I will lay out a few of them for consideration.
1—Cheap Therapy: I am an emotional and mental basket case most of the time. I am old enough now to recognize this fact. I am not really ashamed of it either; it is just the way I am. The more people that I get to know, the more I realize that I am not alone. In fact, I think the human species, in general, is the same way. I am not unique or special in any way with my mental challenges and emotional upheavals. It is clear to me now that we all have them; some are better and hiding! The greatest impact to writing every day for me has been the emotional calmness that results from the exercise. There are times when I do not want to, like right now. I feel stressed because, frankly, I do not want to do anything right now. Sitting here and forcing myself to write something moderately inspiring and halfway intelligent is not exactly fun right now. However, this is what happens. I start to write; the idea starts to flow. I have to do a little research and come back to the writing. My mind focuses, I get clarity, and I start to feel a sense of singularity. Essentially, it has become meditative for me. I have a few days of traveling ahead of me, and I have many things to work on, and I am just not motivated. I am writing the initial draft of what I will put out in a few days. I am already starting to feel better about what is ahead of me. Writing is a cheap form of therapy and probably far more effective.
2—Thirst Quencher: I am not sure how many people are like this, but I really love learning about things. If that could be a full-time job, I would sign up immediately. I could waste an entire day diving down a crazy path and learning about some obscure concept. I sometimes find myself starting new projects just because I learned something new, and I find myself constantly distracted by new ideas, new plans, and new exciting territory. Writing has become my outlet for this. I can spend just enough time learning something so that I can write something down; I do not have to start a new company, or take a class, or do something crazy tha5t adds way too much to my plate. If I can spend an hour writing, then that satisfies the learning drive in me and quenches that thirst. I do not have to fall down diverse paths; I can, instead, learn just enough to understand the concept and move on.
3—Eat a Live Frog: One of my favorite quotes by Mark Twain was his comment that if you eat a live frog for breakfast, everything else is easy. I actually HATE writing, or at least I did. I liked writing just about as much as I liked Brussel Sprouts. They are good for you, but not fun to eat at all. Well, after thousands of days of writing, I like it now, and I am strangely eating Brussel Sprouts now as well. Interesting. I usually write in the morning, and when I am done, I have this sense of accomplishment that really gives me that dopamine hit for the rest of the day. I feel like the rest of the day can go to crap, but at least I wrote an article! Just like Mark Twain said, if you do the really hard thing first, everything else is downhill.
Those are my first three. I have decided to break this article up into two parts. I want to think through the next few benefits of writing so that I will have part 2 tomorrow.
