You wouldn’t know it by looking at my post activity, but for the past two weeks (prior to Monday) I hadn’t written a single post. I was sick, see, and really just didn’t have the energy, to sit down and try to write anything. Like I said, you wouldn’t know it because I typically write all my posts one to two weeks in advance before publishing. So while I didn’t write anything new, I was able to publish what I had already written.
I have to say that I really enjoyed my “time off.” I spend a good three ours a day writing and editing posts. That translates to a week a month dedicated to the education of our readers. Of course, now that I have to get back to having a stack of posts ready to go in case I’m sick again, I’m doing double duty.
Did I mention that I really enjoyed my time off?
This got me thinking about why people like us take all this time to write, and write, and write. Is it the fame, the notoriety, the pleasure in helping people, the business it generates? I suspect its some of all of it.
I enjoy helping people. I always have. All through my life I’ve been involved in various “projects” that all centered around helping people. Sometimes you get attention for it, other times you get spit on. It’s not always glamorous work, and blogging is really no different. Sometimes you get great compliments and other times you get slammed for your opinions, or worse… ignored ;-).
But my question is this, are you really learning? Every post will be more or less valuable to each person depending on they knowledge they already have. Today’s masterpiece will be old news for some, but something new or insightful to someone else. The next day’s quickie post will be hailed as absolutely thought provoking when in reality you put very little thought into it. It’s strange.
I guess the only thing that we can hope for is that somebody somewhere will get value out of our labor of love and use it to grow their business. Of course, we also hope that somebody somewhere out there will read our insights, realize that we know what the heck we are talking about and hire us to do it for them.
That is, after all, how we survive!