"Why do you write? Like... you post 3-4 posts a day, it takes around 1-2 hours to get 1 post out, you get nothing much out of it, so why do you even bother?"
I do think about it as well. Cos it's very normal for rational people to think why they do something when there is nothing in return.
And that's also the reason why I think I've failed in a certain aspect of life. And I think a lot of us struggle with this as well.
If there's no return for something, we don't do it.
In school, we study to pass exams to get good jobs.
We take up ECA, CCA cos it's required to get to a good school in the next phase.
Not a lot of people find a passion/interest cos since young, we have always done things for returns. If there's no return we don't do it.
There are some people who like to exercise. But most people exercise cos they need to.
And this runs right through a bulk of our society. Ask anyone what their passion is, they probably can't give you an answer, cos they never managed to cultivate it. Cos since young, unless they got something tangible in return, they don't pursue stuff just for the interest of it.
When I see my nephew, he challenges other kids, who can run the fastest. And as an adult, I think, what's the point? There's no reward at the end of it. Somehow, kids don't have this reward mentality... yet. They do things for fun, play with toys in make belief worlds, etc etc. And as adults, many of us find no reason to do it. There's no prize at the end.
We are told since young, don't bother to do sports, it won't feed your family, don't play too much games, you aren't good enough to be a pro-gamer, don't sing, dance, play an instrument, all these won't help you make a living. And so often, our talents and passions die out cos we don't pursue things just for the pure interest of it.
So why do I continue to write?
I do think about it, it's not just cos my wife asked that I suddenly think.
I get what? A dollar a day in terms of ad revenue? Ad sense pays out only when I reach $150 so I haven't even received any real cash yet... so money definitely isn't the driver here.
I do like writing and typing and sharing my ideas. I force myself to think of different perspectives daily so that I can post something which might tickle your minds to maybe look at something a little differently. I think of a lot of strange things and I hope to put it down in writing cos that helps to formulate my thoughts.
I like it when readers comment or email me, that I have managed to change their perspective, or learnt something from my experiences. I've made a number of mistakes in my career and had some successes, and I'd like to share them so that others won't make the same mistakes or can find some solace that there are others who have made similar mistakes.
Or we could discuss and I would also get further insights on my own mentality and I see new perspectives that I didn't think about before.
Like everyone, I also have a reward:effort mental ratio. That's also the reason why many blogs don't continue. They post for half a year, they don't get traction and they stop writing. So like my previous post on dopamine, when I see the number of readers everyday, I feel happy which encourages me to continue writing. Weekends, Mon, Tue have lower traffic, Wed, Thur, Fri tends to have more traffic. I feel happier on Wed, Thur, Fri when I see traffic pick up.
I've been posting more regularly for around 2 months only. I've embarked on a number of things in my life and many times, I quit early when I don't see much success at the start. I told myself that I would keep posting til at least 1000 posts before I rethink the reward:effort ratio.
I want to push myself to persevere through the hard start. Like many other things, the starting is hard, then it's supposed to get easier as I go along. I want to grow my blog, to be persistent and keep posting even when readership isn't high. It's like savings. If I don't save $10, I will never save $100, and if I don't save $100 I will never save $1000. No one starts out by saving $10,000. Everyone works through the lower numbers before getting the higher numbers.
Although that I know it's unlikely, I do also hope to grow my ad income and readership. I get a dollar a day out of 500 readers, so mathematically, IF I can get 5000 readers I could possibly get $10 a day. Which is enough for me to have my meals. And if I get 50,000 readers at $100 a day, that's when I would consider myself successful as a blogger. But this is probably unlikely so I won't be holding my breath.
So summarized, why do I continue to write?
1) I like writing and sharing ideas, experiences, lessons.
2) I feel happy and encouraged when I see my readers grow or when I receive feedback.
3) I want to also force myself to persevere and try to grow my readership. Cos I've been an early quitter in many other aspects of life.
Usually, if it's not worth the reward:effort, I usually don't do it, I think this is a wrong mentality. So I take this an a training to break my old mentality. This is a key take-away lesson which I want to achieve from continuing to post.
4) By some freak chance maybe I can get some reasonable income from this, then this would be a great outcome. But I'm not keeping my hopes up, it's like a side quest.
Hope you all will be accompanying me on my journey.
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