If someone had told me 15 years ago that I would spend a great deal of my free time hanging out on a computer “talking” to strangers and sharing tales of my life and my thoughts with these strangers I would have laughed my ass off and replied “Don’t think so, I am not a socially inept person.” Life is funny like that though, it has a way of taking you places that you don’t necessarily plan on going.
After 4 years of slogging away in this space, it has brought me a lot of joy, I have met some cool people and it allowed me to express myself in a way that I needed in order to grow. Yet in recent weeks I have realized that this space has a dark side for me and right now I am trying to decide if it’s time to say good bye.
The past few weeks professionally have been intense, as I joke on my twitter bio, I am the non-profit extraordinaire, but that really isn’t a joke; I am damn good at what I do. I started at the bottom in my field, went to school and worked my way up. Though I choose to run a small agency, in the past several months alone I have been contacted by headhunters and other organizations about positions that a few short years ago would have made me jump for joy. Leading an agency with revenues of 5 million dollars? Fuck yeah! In less than 2 weeks I raised more than enough money to keep my agency’s summer program open and brought in the type of donors I have been bugging my board about for years, donors that will help cement the financial security of our organization. I won’t lie, I took a risk with the move that I made, one that could have backfired, I prayed and meditated for guidance knowing if this move didn’t work, I was jeopardizing our agency’s 17 year history.
So now that the kids and families that are served by my agency won’t lose their summer programming, I thought I would be relaxed and happy but I haven’t been happy. See, until this morning, I was too busy feeling like a loser because this space isn’t as successful as other bloggers blogs. I was bummed because I wasn’t going to the BlogHer conference; I was bummed because PR people say my numbers are low. In other words everything about this space has been bumming me out. That dissatisfaction is spilling out into other areas of my life and frankly it must stop.
Addicts typically like the addictive behavior that is bad for them, but they reach a point with the booze or drugs or whatever when they know they need to stop. I am not saying I am some type of blog addict, but I know that writing for print publications doesn’t bring out the tension that I am now starting to feel around this space. I wrote professionally for 5 years before I ever blogged and looking back, my writing did not interfere with my career as a non-profit administrator. I enjoyed the columns I wrote and enjoyed the extra cash I earned. Yet in blogging I feel like I am a hamster on a wheel always wanting more and I don’t know if I can get off and find balance.
Last week I had little time to blog and it felt good, yet when I read most blogs now or even check in on fellow tweeps who blog, I feel the tension rise. Frankly it’s a shitty feeling. Right now I am exploring ways that maybe I can occasionally blog and still maintain my online presence but if there is no way to do it and maintain a semblance of balance, I will be fading into the black and pulling the plug here.
In other words blogging and everything about it, isn’t bringing out the best in me. Life is too short and precious to not enjoy what I have and pining away for what I don’t have is a waste of time. I am hoping I can find that balance that will allow me to keep this space open, but if not then I see this as one of many destinations on this journey we call life that we outgrow.
