Plans, which are simply actions that are still in the theory stage, are always easier and less complicated than the execution stage. For instance, I first decided in college that I was going to start a blog. Not because I feel that I am important enough or witty enough to expect a plethora of followers. Please. I’m a mere twenty-five years old and I have what many would say is a typical life. The reasons I wanted to start a blog were the following:
· I believe one should always exercise his/her writing skills. Whether I am writing a press release for work or I am writing a note on a birthday card, it is important to remember that “practice makes perfect” and in a field where good writing is imperative, I am one to avoid tipping the boat. Keep the skills up = more valuable.
· I have strong ambitions, which will arise countless more times in my bloggings, I’m sure. I believe that writing a blog can be a useful tool to network or just put on the old resume.
· I think that writing a blog can become therapeutic; a way to have an intelligent conversation when you are in the mood to have one and a way to vent when times call for it.
So, as a girl in college I was dead set on starting a blog. Well what came of that, you ask? I was “distracted” by other things and simply put it on the back burner with all of my other ideas.
Fast-forward three years: a graduation, a move to Virginia, another move…to California this time, a career-starting job, a wedding, two puppies and a house purchase. And yet still, a life “sans” blog. At the risk of cutting myself too much slack, I feel it is fair to say that one could classify those three years as “crazy busy.”
Throughout those three years, every once in a while, that itch would come back and every time that itch would come I would tell myself, “things are crazy right now…but soon.” Well it turns out that negotiating with yourself, as expected, only pacifies the problem for a little while and delays the inevitable. I would tell myself, “the first blog posting has to be original, funny and brilliant,” which pretty much guaranteed that I would keep putting it off until some moment of miraculous inspiration struck me. Did I mention that I have a little habit of putting extremely and sometimes unrealistically high expectations on myself and sometimes others? No? Okay, well…note it. It will surely rear its ugly head in the future.
Of course no such moment presented itself.
As a way to force myself to get rolling on this, I thought, “I will tell my friends/family about it so that they will support me and start to expect results!” Well, I told a few of my friends and family members, who reacted with encouragement. However, nothing really pushed me to follow through on it. After all, I had the golden excuse with which to lull myself to sleep at night: “things are crazy right now…but soon.”
In retrospect, I think I was delaying it because I was afraid it would become the “Caitlin Show” where I drone on and on about trivial things, as many blogs have done and continue to do. I feel so turned off to the idea of talking about myself because it says to the reader, “look how important I am. I have a blog and people want to know about my day.” Ick and no thank you. Egotistical much?
With that said, as time goes by and as I am starting to read others’ blogs, I am finding that I am interested in what they have to say because it speaks volumes of who they are. How one writes can be extremely revealing, though many do not get that concept. Just see your Facebook friends’ wall posts to fully illustrate my point.
So let’s cut to the chase here. I believe I am a smart woman who has a lot to say about the world around me. Was this first blog post original, funny and brilliant? No, but I have to start somewhere.
Welcome to my blog and I hope you find it interesting, funny, thought-provoking or just helps you to see me in a new way.
