The blogging year for me hasn’t been quite that great. I’ve posted less and have lost focus on keeping a consistent style. This stems from the fact that I have started to care less about running a blog and more about just enjoying my life as it is and feeling free to do what I want, like rediscovering the joys of watching YouTube again and playing video games. My purpose with blogging is it to simply learn how to write and express my thoughts, in ways that I have a hard time doing out loud. Sure I want to become successful at this…someday…but I don’t want it to become such a burden in my life that I have no time for anything else anymore. That is why I fallen off the pace so much because following a daily posting schedule was just proving to be too hard. But I guess I need to get motivated again in order to continue blogging with a purpose. Getting hungry again means looking down the road and figuring out my goals, whatever they may be. I don’t care if it isn’t always shiny and full of luster or that I’m hitting the right buttons each time, I just want to make sure I am still having fun and actually feeling like I have a life.
There are so many smart people in this world, many of them way smarter than I am. I am always envious to be on their level, to think and act like them, because there is something so brilliant in taking life for more than what it is.
Am I ambitious enough for this high stakes world? I’m not really sure. I definitely still have many things to accomplish, many things to prove. I feel as if my message hasn’t quite gotten out there yet, is still circling around in a current or acting as a boomerang, always coming straight back to me with a return address as if they aren’t interested. I hate those thoughts that say I can’t do something, that I’m crazy for even thinking I can.
That’s the problem I have right now with wanting to achieve something much greater than myself, that I have to go to such great lengths to do it, have to enter quite a few scary situations, do a few crazy things to realize I can. Living in a small town is difficult for the dreamer because you don’t often have access to the people that will help you get over the barrier, you’ll often be faced with derision and feelings of hopelessness. There are many people around me that are negative about life, that have never realized their full capabilities. They are scared. Scared of change. They might as well become a product of the system than do anything differently. There are two sides to my family – the people that that took the road to a happy, fulfilling life of wealth and success, and the people that took the simpler path to a more average life that doesn’t have much in the way of prospects, is full of dead ends, but they are happy anyway.
I’m tired of wanting to shut myself away from the world. I want to shine, but it’s always painful to come out of my comfort zone. Over the past few years I’ve been working to find a place where I am most comfortable, which has always seemed to be in a space where I am alone, but not too alone as to elicit depressive thoughts. Too much social contact tends to drain my batteries and I need to be alone to recharge.
I hear it all the time: you have to be persistent, you have to keep working hard, you have to make them believe in you. There is always one more mile to go to making yourself better. Having an ambition means committing your life to accomplishing goals and knocking down barriers that are in your way. And the more people you meet and follow that have the same kind of dreams as you do, the more you realize they aren’t so crazy and ridiculous after all.
You sometimes have to do more than just “dream on”
What’s one piece of great advice you’ve read recently? Or what’s the best bit of wisdom you’ve ever received?
“Always follow your dreams” – a message I saw on a billboard the other day while going down the notorious 1-94 in Michigan. Dreams are there to act upon. If you don’t wake up and start doing something about them, they will never come true. The dreamer is a hopeless soul; the doer is the one with most success in life. Dreamers believe but never achieve; Doers believe and go right ahead getting done what needs to be done. They don’t worry about the results – they learn to look at the bigger picture and see what they can do better.
If you ask some of the greatest chefs in the world what they did to get to their level of mastery in the culinary world, they would say they had to start right at the bottom and work their way to the top. They would say they didn’t have a shortage of days where they just failed miserable and were critiqued badly, and where they kept hearing about the famous chefs above them opening 5-star restaurants and wondering if they were silly for thinking they could possibly do the same thing. But they kept fighting and kept their head above water, continuing to learn and grow and eventually get to their current spot in life
I want to be a doer but the dreamer side of me is still quite fascinated by the mythical thing known as success. A couple of times I’ve tried to act out these dreams of mine only to realize the tough reality: achieving them takes so much effort and a lot of luck. Much of achieving your dreams requires actually having other people around you to help, to collaborate and pitch in their own creative ideas. But when your people skills are not very good, going it alone always feels like the best choice, even if it would be extremely hard to achieve what you want to do.
My piece of advice, based on my previous experiences, is to not let the negativity get to you. Shut out the voices that say you’re not good enough or not talented enough for your dream profession, whatever it is. Most of all, block out the haters that try to destroy your confidence and keep you from continuing on your path. Or leverage all of the negative talk and use it to make yourself the best ever. The grass is always greener on the other side – look to the alternatives to see what could be better.
Aerosmith tells us to “Dream on…dream until your dreams come true” but the song should really be “Wake up…wake up and make your make your dreams come true”. Your dreams are hopeless without a plan set in motion. Like building a skyscraper, it always starts with a solid foundation.
The door to eternal happiness is a fickle one. It seems to move all over the place like the target games at the fair. One minute you believe you have the answer, the next you are wondering if the path you chose was the right one along with thoughts of “if I could just go back and change things”. There seems to be no right path in life. There is no real answer. Life is what you make of it. You either win or lose based on your choices. It’s life and death and what you do in between is what really matters, is the difference between you being remembered or simply forgotten like a leaf in the breeze. The door holds a lot of mystery. A lot of white light. A lot of possibilities.
I am going through a door but there is no definitive light at the end; there is a foggy mist of mystery. The light flickers and flashes but it doesn’t call out for me. I’m running into this mist with a sword and shield, ready to face whatever pitfall comes my way. The ground is shaky but solid – I have an idea of where I am heading but there is always doubt in my mind. Points are being laid out as I go. My internal GPS is directing me toward a far off location. Based off my immediate families lives, the destination could be living a normal life with a good paying job but no chance for advancement or the life of a perpetual loner who is set in his ways and has basically nothing else to look forward to but the most trivial, unimportant things – his life, for the most part, has never produced the sort of wings that allow one to soar over the mountains and explore all there is to know. He is trapped in a world of fear, unable to venture outside of his comfort zone. This comfort zone is crippling. It holds you back from living the most ideal life. You stand on the sidelines watching everyone else rise to unprecedented heights while you’re the one filling the water bottles wondering what might happen if you just take a chance.
I suppose it’s up to me to figure out what I want to do. It’s up to me to figure out where I want to be in the next ten years, which is definitely not still sitting on this same couch brooding about what I could have done but in a place of my own thinking about what I’m happy to have accomplished. My journey through life is not complete yet. There’s still a number of plans I’m hoping fall into place once the means to achieve them become possible. I’m not planning on getting married for a long while, not until all of the pieces fall into place. I’m not even in the situation right now to marry anyone. It would be premature and kind of silly. Save the best ’til last and don’t waste the moment.
It doesn’t start with a cup of coffee or any routine exercises. It doesn’t start with making phone calls or pre-planning ideas for the day. In fact, I don’t have to do much at all because I’m always logged into WordPress and posts are always open in the browser.
My blog is on my mind most of the day, just hanging out in a corner of my mind, reminding me that it still is important, even if there are other interests that want attention as well, like video making now (so much fun). I always find time for it, along with other priorities in my life. I’ve been doing this for over two years now and I would be lying if I said I never had thoughts of completely giving up on it a couple of times. There are days when I just don’t feel like blogging and have nothing on my mind. There is the trusty Daily Prompt of course, but after doing that for over a year and seeing prompts regurgitated, it does get old after a while. I just have to remind myself of something another blogger mentioned when the going gets tough: writer’s write. That might seem like a redundant and obvious statement but it basically means you can always find something to put down, even if it doesn’t seem like a very good idea at first.
The path to success with anything starts with consistency. You have to practice something over and over in order to become a master at it: instruments, drawing, writing, speaking, film making, even video games.
Blogging is a prison you can’t break free, or at least you shouldn’t. If you do break free, you risk never reentering the ecosystem ever again, and abandoning your blog and any loyal followers. You risk losing interest and the will to write anything anymore. Starting a new blog is always a great idea though, because you can then apply all the things you learned from your first go around and start off on the right foot to success quickly. Gaining a legion of followers again might be difficult but if you find the magic touch again, gaining momentum and a rhythm wouldn’t be hard.
To be an effective blogger, you need to blog nearly every day, or at least a couple times a week. Going on long hiatuses is not a recipe for success. Your followers will want to have faith that they can expect new posts on a regular basis.
To any new bloggers out there, maybe some that are reading this, I have one simple piece of advice for you:
Be Yourself.
Don’t be pressured to be like another blogger who has had success with a certain writing topic or interest such as photography and poetry. Go with what you are most comfortable with but be willing to try new things just to freshen up once in a while. That’s what keeps readers interested and not subjected to boredom.
I believe blogging has been a real personality builder for me. Before this, I didn’t have much of a way to share my thoughts and rewind. I’m more of an introvert, so I have a better time getting my thoughts out on paper (or digital post boxes in this case) than out loud. I tried video blogging (vlogging) for a while but found it difficult to come up with something new all the time and I couldn’t express myself in words very well. It’s also a chore to make the videos and edit everything together (sound quality is SO important). With blogging, there is no need for highly specialized equipment or worries about audio. I am able to easily put my inner thoughts down without any technical problems or worries about the output. Unlike videos, I can go back and edit a post as much as I like, deleting and adding things that I think are necessary. I feel like I can unlock so many other gears with writing than videos because I feel more like myself than a character I try to play to entertain the audience. Writing is pure; videos are flair. They both have their strengths, they both have their weaknesses. To be truly happy, choose the one that you feel most comfortable with.
Give your newer sisters and brothers-in-WordPress one piece of advice based on your experiences blogging.
If you’re a new blogger, what’s one question you’d like to ask other bloggers?
It still eludes me so. I take two steps forward, two steps back, lose my grip, fall down hard, but always get back up and try again. The grass is always greener. There’s always tomorrow. Failure is what makes me stronger, it is not a bad thing, it is an essential ingredient to any success story. And the more I fail the more I learn. The more I learn how not to fail.
It takes patience, skill to reach the plateau. I’m still fighting my troubles, my worries, and my demons. I want to get up there, up to the place where everything’s swell, where all the others bask in the glory, but a door always blocks my way. I try to get in, but am always rejected, being given a good kick to the shins. “Not yet,” a cold hard voice always shouts at me. And sometimes it’s a few stumbles back down the ladder, having to readjust and fix my mistakes.
I mistook success to be instant gratification, an overnight conversion, when in reality it’s a lifetime battle, a struggle against odds. I must perfect my craft if I am to move on. I must seize the dream I desire and start making it a reality. That must be my problem. I’ve never had any goals in mind. Life has always been a vague mystery to me. There’s always been a dark shadow looming over myself. I’m finally seeing the light though, a sense of direction. I’ll get there someday, just with the scars of many battles fought and setbacks experienced. My blogging experience for one has seen many posts trashed, hours wasted to only get nothing in return. Discouragement I get. I start to believe I’m a good writer and the infamous zeros stare back at me. I’m all of a sudden an amateur again, shades of 2013. This post is not just about that in general but about all the failures in my life that I have had to live with. I’ve gone to many job interviews in my life and so far only came back with one yes, which turned out to a total scam because everyone got “hired” right on the spot. My short stint as a sales rep selling knives I’m speaking of.
They always tell you as a kid you can grow up to be whatever you want to be, that the sky’s the limit to potential. Well, I’m just now figuring out what exactly that is. Is it a chef? A photographer? A designer? An engineer? A writer? A profound blogger? I’m taken some of the steps to reach my goals, learning valuable skills and lessons along the way. I’ve gone to college and graduated. I’ve gained valuable skills at an internship. The signs are finally being pointed in the right direction, the words becoming visible in my minds eye. Blurriness is subsiding. That grey matter of the unknown is finally disappearing. I no longer see the world in just black and white. It’s not just a simple yes or no but there are multiple avenues I can choose.
I have a one track mind. When I get to doing something, I can only focus on it and only it and exclude out everything else around me. When I’m in blog mode, it’s full concentration, my thoughts being channeled into my ideal inspiration. Any distractions throw my off completely. When I accidentally erase my entire post 500 words in and it can’t be recovered, I throw my hands up, the love put into all those words moot points then. When I’m deep into reading a good novel, any disturbances upset me and ruin my flow. When I’m in the middle of a tough battle in a video game, my full attention must be on not letting the enemy get the upper hand, not pinning me in a corner. Of course, video games aren’t real life. You can always die and try again. You can also cheat your way to success. A Up Up Down Up B. In real life you go to jail for that.
So I’m finally figuring out success. Or success is finally figuring me out. It’s not what you gain in life that makes you great, it’s what brings you happiness each day you set about doing what you love. Money = success, yes, but without the joy and happiness that comes along with that wealth, and the friends and family to share it with, it is a cold lonely life for the individual. I would love to make lots of money doing what I love, but I would never want to outcast my family and never speak to them again.
If “failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor” (Truman Capote), how spicy do you like your success stories?
Success is a hotdog? Never thought of it like that. I guess I’ve eaten it many times, hoping to find the best one but they are always disappointing to me – there is always another successful story out there that has or is waiting to be written (or eaten) and surely taste better than mine. The condiment called failure, a nasty but delicious mixture of ketchup, mustard, relish, onions, pepper spray, and other unknown substances, flavors this hotdog or hamburger, or whatever, making it taste better. The more failure applied to the success hotdog, the more appetizing it gets, the more likely it is to break free from the pack of bland hotdogs and win everyone over at the annual hotdog judging contest (if there is such a thing).
So like Charlie said, I like my success spicy but not too spicy. His saying has nothing to do with success but you get the point. Too much failure makes me feel depressed and desperate for something to work again but too little failure will leave me with blinders on both sides of my head, unable to have peripheral vision, to see the world in a broader spectrum. Failure helps me become better, to improve myself. Without failure, I am just a gloating, nothing-can-hurt-me, never taking risks kind of guy. Keeping a good ratio of success and failure in my life is what keeps me honest, keeps me afloat in this roughneck, drag me down world. Some of my failures in life include trying to start a business, get a successful YouTube channel going, learning to drive a car, trying to run for class president, failing on my first word in the Spelling Bee (flashback!), and some others that are undoubtedly hiding in the cobwebs of my magnificent library upstairs. These failures are good because they help me realize nothing is easy and I can learn from them, to become better next time. But I don’t want too much failure or I am left feeling hopeless and vulnerable, and surely would not want to try some things again. Until now, I’ll go back to finding the next hotdog or hamburger that has a nice mix of success and failure in it and will keep me satisfied until the good feeling is gone and I have to look for more success food to eat. Hopefully you understand what I’m talking about.
So pick yourself up
Take a deep breath
Dust yourself off
And start all over again
P.S. I voted today, not that is going to have much of an effect but as I always say, “At least I have a right to vote for whoever I want and don’t have a gun to my head.”
An Awesome Mind 
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