Why Do I Blog?

Image by rita banerji via Flickr

Over on Michael Hyatt‘s blog, he discusses the reason he blogs, the mental games he plays about the practice, what it means when readership fails to grow.

Why do I blog?

I like to tell stories. I like to share information. I like to be connected and I like people to want to be connected to me. I believe I have an insight (on at least some issues) that could be useful or beneficial to someone else out there in the world.

Why don’t I blog?

If you’ve been a reader for a long time [read: since the beginning of the blog via CMS in 2002 or when I was still hand-writing all of my HTML back in 1997], you’ll know that I had a great period of writing a great amount of content. I would write short posts, long posts, rants and reflections. I would write about the Church, school, politics, TV, news, anything and everything. I didn’t really worry about what people would think when they read the post; although, by nature, I’m not a person whose unfiltered thoughts would offend a great deal of people.

I stopped blogging, I believe, because I became afraid to say the wrong thing. I did not want to give anyone the wrong idea about anything. I did not want my position as a campus minister negatively influence someone if I wrote something challenging, something showing weakness, something “pissy”. Now that I’m in sales, same thing again. I don’t want to offend a client, or potential client, by being myself.

That’s no way to govern a blog. Yes, a blog should appeal to the reader but the writer cannot appease anyone and everyone.

I am currently in a leadership showcase program presented by SOS Leadership looking specifically at goal-setting. As part of this week’s exercise, I decided that I truly enjoyed blogging (when I actually did it well) and that I was a happier person when I was able to crystallize my thought via this process. Therefore, I shall blog once again.