Aug 21 2009
My 100th Blog: Top Ten Reasons Why I Still Bother
On March 5th of this year I set out to start a blog. I wrote my first post not knowing whether or not I’d be stopping in a matter of weeks, and with very little if any direction (still working on the direction
).
So now, as I write my 100th post I’m here to give my top ten reasons why I’m still plugging away at these blog posts nearly seven months later:
10. Today.com pays me to do so. OK, this one’s real lame, considering the amount I get paid. One doesn’t receive payment until you reach $50, so at the rate I’m going I’ll be celebrating my first check with my 1000th post. But hey, it doesn’t hurt to know that someday it will be there.
9. In this new age when people want to find out about a person, everybody knows what they do. They google them, of course. But I fear that if I maintain a minimal online presence, then I have no idea what trash someone might discover if they look me up. With this blog I get to set the agenda. Now if someone wants to google me, they’ll find plenty of things out there. And almost everything will be under my terms.
8. You never know what kind of impact a few simple words might have on someone. I’m a firm believer that if you keep trying to reach a person’s heart you’ll increase the likelihood that the “right place, right time” might magically roll around. What do I know about this world? For all I know twenty years from now someone’s going to ask me if I’m the Rabbi Jaffe from this blog. When I say that I am, they might tell me that something I wrote hit home with them at just the right moment. I helped give them the strength and to desire to (fill in the blank). And it all would happen because I bothered to sit here doing this.
7. It gives me another motivation to follow the news. Whenever it seems like the news is so darn repetitive and manipulative that I just can’t take it anymore, I can think to myself that no matter what I find, I always have the ability to put my own spin on things. I don’t need to just rely on what some reporter wants me to feel. I have all the reason in the world to look, think… and write.
6. It motivates to stay on top of the weekly Torah portion. Judaism provides me with countless sources of what to write about, and luckily for me there’s new stuff each week for an entire year. And once again, I get an opportunity to think about things and write about them in my own words.
5. Sometimes I know I feel something, but I’m not yet ready to put it in words. For example, I knew something about Obama’s health plan irked me, but I felt at a loss to logically explain why. So I wrote this blog, and it cleared my mind. Now I feel like I know pretty much exactly how to explain how I feel.
4. I get to learn a trade. There are so many great and important things to learn about that can help improve my blog, things like HTML and Search Engine Optimization (and this “trick”), and I want to become a master at all of them. There is nothing more fulfilling than learning new and interesting things, especially ones that can potentially be used for so many other purposes as well.
3. When I was in high school and college I used to write all the time. I was even a writing minor at my university. But I get so little opportunity in my adult life. In my opinion writing is a skill like any other skill. You get better the more you practice, and you get rocky the more you slack off. My writing has basically been on hold for way too long, and it’s time I get back in shape.
2. One word: Catharsis. The ability to write about whatever is on my mind whenever I want is both thrilling and an effective way of releasing mass amounts of inner tension. It’s like a personal therapy, and I feel like a better person because I do it. If I had this reason alone, I would still be writing.
1. It’s fun. I’ll admit it. I thought blogging was silly… I still do… But it’s fun silly. Some people like video games when they need down time. I have a blog.
See you in #101!
