When I learned how to navigate the internet, one of the first things I intentionally studied for was to create a blog site. I don't know—it just seemed popular at that time. My teenage was an era of high-schoolers roaming the internet doing things like, "Hey, check out my blog where I post my poems and stuff."
Looking back, I really tried almost all platforms but cannot seem to achieve contentment. Maybe because I was too overwhelmed by the theme choices, or because I kept comparing website builders (I tried Tumblr, Webs, Weebly, WordPress, Medium, Wix). I also joined social writing communities such as ABCTales, Wattpad, Writing.com, Writers Digest, and NaNoWriMo, but never concentrated on one.
Very disorganized. Very scattered. I ended up abandoning all those blog sites and lost all the momentum of developing my writing skills. I focused too much on making an aesthetically-impressive blog site rather than actually making good content.
Then, I became a college student. I graduated from the fresh high school society wherein I could have the time to make a blog and still be a class valedictorian. I became a college student, and grinded in the daily grits of college stuff—accounting, law, taxation, minor subjects, organization duties, making myself visible and outstanding among the studentry (and outside), building professional networks. Then, I took the board exams and I joined the workforce. The daily struggle was even more stressful. Entering adulthood is a tradeoff of freedoms and resources. I did not abandon writing, but I totally forgot about blogging.
During this community quarantine, my friends and acquaintances got the time to reconnect with their old hobbies or to learn new skills—music, arts, reading, cooking, etc. I thought of keeping up, but I have so many pending jobs. I could use my whole day to at least make progress, if not finish, my backlogs, when I have the privilege to stay employed.
But, why am I depriving myself of leisure, at a time everybody else is discovering themselves? When work pressure subsided for this unusual busy season like I used to pray for, why am I hesitating to grab it?
Or are these just excuses? In fact, I really do not need to "start" a hobby. I just need to "revive" an old self. Maybe I am just making excuses not to write. Maybe I am just avoiding the thought because I am not confident in myself anymore. Maybe I am just afraid of the failure to sustain what I start, just like those old blogs. Maybe I am just running away.
Most importantly, what hinders me from writing is the thought that I need to be a very upstanding member of the society first to gain the right and relevance to speak. I have no strong experience nor significant achievements to make people listen to me. I failed to sustain that social influence because I prioritized other things in the past.
And I am socially distant from inviting people to face my direction (i.e. please like my page or please follow my blog). That is so unlike me. Yet another lame excuse.
But, I thought I needed to graduate from this indecisiveness. And all this fear. And all these excuses. I have many thoughts conflicting each other. But I eventually have to choose. You can see ©2019 in the footer because I made this blog site in December 2019. And my IGN has been up since 2017 on Twitter. You can just think of how long this blog site has been idle because of that lame indecisiveness. But you know what I chose.
I chose to return.
In order to do that, I also had to sacrifice something bigtime to pressure myself—"You better make this work, or else, my investment would go to waste." (Self vs. Self)
There are so many amazing success stories of YouTubers and online content creators to make myself motivated. But, I have no confidence at all. Until now, all I have is a half-baked want to start a blog fueled by a dire need to face myself again. The product of that is this blog.
And I seriously need to stop making excuses. I just need to start.
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