Last weekend I passed a milestone. It’s been four years – four years and five days, to be exact – since I published my very first post. I revisited it last night and hit a sort of good news, bad news, good news, huh situation.

  • Good news – I didn’t hate it. That’s saying something since I can be pretty critical of past writing.
  • Bad news – It’s not my most riveting post.
  • Good news – But it does explain how I finally tumbled into blogging.
  • Huh – I’d love to believe more than one person read it. I can’t prove that in a court of law.

Bygones.

I find it fascinating there are people I know who are still surprised when they find out I blog. It’s such a big part of my life I guess I figured “BLOGGER IN MOTION” is stamped across my forehead, so I usually bungle the startled reactions. I try to pull off a friendly “um, YEAH” when “You blog?!” gets tossed my way but come on, doesn’t everybody?

As it turns out, everybody doesn’t blog. There are apparently a number of people who have no idea why I’d ever want to park myself in front of a laptop and toss words onto the internet like a crazy woman. Which naturally got me to thinking about things I’ve learned while blogging that totally apply to normal people, too.

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Worrying about how many people “like” you will drive you bonkers.

Counting how many people click that like button on your post pushes you to the point of homecoming court desperation – But WHY don’t they like me?? Why didn’t they vote for me? I’m awesome, too, Becky. Same diff with the office coffee group, PTO moms, or team outings. Save yourself the grief and just like yourself.

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We don’t negotiate with terrorists.

Writing is a delicate dance of commitment and indulgence. Too heavy handed with one or the other and you’ve got gridlock, a situation that shows up in a zillion other ways. Just try scheduling two hour committee meetings at 7am every Monday in a room where they don’t allow food or drink then clock how long it takes the group to break down. Or having three day work weeks with two hour lunch breaks. #WorkLifeBalance

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Practice makes perfect-ish and perfect-ish is good.

Mama said it best – if you want to be good at something then you have to practice. Writing, sports, music, multiplication tables, learning a language, making an omelet, backflips – you want it, you gotta practice. Embrace the habit.

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Trial and error is your friend.

Who told us we’re supposed to know what we’re doing by twenty-five? I brainstorm. I write drafts. Sometimes they get tossed, sometimes they’re published. Sometimes they nail it and sometimes they bomb. Live and learn, man. Live and learn.

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Do What You Love, Love What You Do is more than a t-shirt.

Is it a stylish shirt? Sure. But you don’t really know what firing on all cylinders is until you actually miss what you do when you can’t do it.

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