Keeping Score: Reflections of 2016

It’s been quite a year for me, both as a writer and as a person. In two more days, it’ll be exactly a year when I launched this blog, a project I started with uncertainty but enthusiasm, which I’ve managed to keep up somehow even if not as frequently as intended.

In retrospect, I now realize and admit that I got way too caught up with building an audience instead of posting content.

While building an audience isn’t necessarily a bad thing because all bloggers/writers do it, I can now see how I let having very few to no readers at certain points during the course of the year affect my enthusiasm.

Because of the low number of blog views during certain times, my momentum with producing blog posts and topics to write about was affected. Subconsciously,  I guess I had brought into the notion that nobody cared about what I had to say; my writing and blog just weren’t good enough.

In the coming year, my goal is to simply focus on writing and getting my perspective out there. If I get readers, fine and if I don’t, then that’s fine too. I’d like to stop keeping score and subconsciously discouraging myself from continuing based on others.

In 2016, I’ve also learned a lot as a person.

Not only did I gain more insight about the world at large and people in general, I’ve definitely learned things about myself that I never knew, like:

…how impatient I can get when I’m pushed to the brink inter-personally yet how patient I’ve become with myself and with the process of learning who I am and what I am capable of becoming.

…how important the process of learning, achieving, or obtaining something is to me over the outcome and how much I enjoy it

…how much I despise having to ask for something instead of receiving it. I like to earn things like people’s time and interest, I don’t like acquiring them through begging or requesting.

The things I’ve learned from the world at large include:

…what you see/people present to you is often an illusion. When you dig deep, you’ll be surprised to find it’s not what it seems.

…people of true substance hate the spotlight, won’t judge you, and listen more than they talk.

…no one’s keeping score about anybody but themselves

With that, I leave 2016 ready to face what’s ahead. Cheers to you, dear reader, for a safe, healthy, and prosperous New Year. Talk to you in 2017!