In creating a new blog/platform, I realised that it wasn't the most important thing in my life. SO I STOPPED. I stopped, to focus on the most important thing first.
I started this page on a different website. I wrote a few posts, mediocre posts and a couple of blogs that I was proud of. Unfortunately, The more I wrote the more I hated the process. Every night, I would go to bed feeling like a failure. I would spend hours curating the perfect Instagram posts, but in the end, they felt shallow and quite frankly not essential. I inserted quote after quote, book pic after book pic and waited for likes. Waited for followers and waited for comments. My goal had been to WRITE and write about learning and growth but I spent hours on social media. I don’t quite remember why I started spending so much time on social media, I suppose it might have been the initial catalyst for the blog. For some reason it felt essential, I had to have it or else this would be a failure.
Additionally, I made my goal a little too big. I started with the simple idea of creating a blog. A simple blog, about simple ideas. The more I worked on the blog, the less simple it became. I made a YouTube channel, an Instagram and a Facebook account. I was about to make a Twitter account, considered Snapchat and Linkedin and thought about TikTok. The truth of the matter is, I’ve never been a fan of social media. So this was going to affect my mental health in the long run.
The more posts, book pics and quotes I wrote the more I realised I was not doing the most important thing at the time. I was failing at the essential but worked more on the non-essential because this is what people would ultimately see and this was what others were doing. Online presence! This is how people would judge me. My perfectly curated pictures and books. I took a step back and rejected this. I decided to only pursue the essentials, and quite frankly, this blog and social media were not one of them.
Essentialism
I want to focus on the essentials in life, the pursuit of less and the beauty of simplicity
Over the quarantine period, I read a few books that I love and will probably re-read. Most of these I had read before, but I had never really implemented what was in the books. I spent a lot of time with God, reading my bible and praying, and over and over again I was presented with key things that I had to follow. If there is anything that I am grateful for, anything good that has come out of the new normal is my closeness to God and my better understanding of self.
I read "Deep Work" and "Digital Minimalism" by Cal Newport. This immediately made me realise that I don’t want social media and the only reason I had these was because of F.O.M.O (fear of missing out). I also realised the mental impact of being so connected and constantly comparing myself to others that I decided to try deleting social media. Not deactivating but deleting. I had deactivated my accounts several times but found myself just getting into an addictive spiral once activated. Deactivating had become a temporary mode to focus and sadly my focus has deteriorated over the past few years.
I then read "Essentialism - The Disciplined Pursuit for less (by Greg McKeown)" and chose three of the most critical things I would focus on, this page was not a part of these three. Lastly, I read the power of now and as I am writing this I am drifting in and out of the present moment.
I’ve thought about how best to introduce this blog. Say what the page is about, my interests, my hobbies etc. But the truth of the matter is I don’t know where this is going. I know I want to be authentic and share things I’m doing, ideas that I think are bold and interesting without compromising my main goals, away from this page. This may mean stepping away for a little bit and that is okay with me. I don’t have a plan, as to when and how I will post, I will post when I can. I don’t have concrete ideas or a niche that I want to follow, all I know is I want to focus on the essentials in life, the pursuit of less and the beauty of simplicity. The goal today, at the moment, is to inspire one person, even if that person is me.
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