Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Looking Back At Moving Forward

  It is amazing how something that began with zero expectation of being anything more than an unremarkable personal outlet, can grow into something bigger-- something that hopefully might be meaningful to someone else too.  I started this blog almost six years ago and it's incredible how much has happened in my life and the world in general since then.  I never imagined anything like this would come of it, but here it is:

So Anyway just passed 22,222 views!!

Why celebrate now? The number two is my favorite number so this is a fun milestone for me!

  Looking back, I honestly don't know quite what to think about the long roller-coaster ride of getting to this point, and it surprises me to see how much my writing has changed since the beginning, but I am certainly glad I decided to take the step of getting outside of my head this way.  In fact, it is hard to imagine my life without having a good way to write something more than random comments on Facebook.

  I admit that even though my university English professors urged me to consider a major in journalism, I doubted whether something like this was really possible for me.  But here we are, and I am very grateful for the opportunity to share this journey with you.  I think we tend to shortchange ourselves when it comes to believing in our true potential (at least I know I do) and it's clear that we need to have more faith in what we can do when we really set our mind to accomplishing something.  We need to let ourselves hope, and then push ourselves to take steps toward those hopes.

  In 2013, I published thirteen articles here on So Anyway.  That's not a lot by most blogging standards, but for something I do as a personal hobby I felt like averaging one article every month was not too shabby.  Then I increased that output by following up in 2014 with twenty-one posts.  I was growing not only as a person, but as a writer... a necessary evolution in order to have a shot at publishing even a fraction of the thoughts I want to share.  Then the story takes an unexpected turn.

  Last year I posted just six times, and not all of them were substantial enough to be what I would count as "writing"; that's a 71% decrease.  Furthermore, I have not published a single article this year, until now.  My mother has made the observation in the past that she can tell when a given period of life is particularly challenging for me, because I will pretty much disappear from social media for a while.

Moms can be wise like that.

  It would be impossible for me to dive into the full story as to why I have been so stingy with clicking the "publish" button for the last year and a half.  But for now I can tell you that my journey has been keeping me unrelentingly busy expanding my "mind palace" as Sherlock Holmes would call it.  And moving forward, whenever I feel that place is ready for more company, you will still find invitations here to join me in contemplating the human condition.  :)

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