I thought about starting a blog for a long time. There was a whole range of considerations that stopped me.
First was a thought that I don’t have anything especially important to say. Sure, I have opinions, and I even consider some of those opinions to be reasonably insightful. But everywhere I turn there are columnists and essayists whose opinions are better informed and thought-through than mine, and who are better at articulating their opinions than I am.
Some bloggers provide value to their readers by expounding on a particular area of expertise, like Seth Godin with his advice for entrepreneurs on marketing and making an impact. There’s only one thing I have any particular expertise in — personal productivity — but it’s not unique expertise, and there are a lot of people out there, like David Allen and Francis Wade, who are doing a great job of advising people about how to manage their time and their priorities.
Another consideration that gave me pause about starting a blog was my privacy. Almost twelve years ago I created a Facebook account. My first post was about how I was getting ready to go down to Washington, DC, for Barack Obama’s inauguration. Then I headed off to my local coffee shop for breakfast and was approached by a neighbor I barely knew who said, “So, heading down to the inauguration, eh?” I was completely taken aback. Somehow it hadn’t occurred to me that posting information about my personal life on a social networking site meant that other people were then going to know that about me. When I got home I shut down my Facebook account and kept it inactive for five years. (I reactivated it when I moved to a neighborhood that shares information through a community Facebook page. I’ve since deleted my account again for different reasons.) Of course, an obscure, one-off blog is not as “discoverable” as a Facebook page. But nonetheless, I would need to ensure that anything I revealed in a blog was something I’d be comfortable with anyone in the world reading at any time in the future.
A third consideration was sensitivity. A blog is not a journal, in which you can say whatever comes into your head. Things you post on a blog have the potential to give offense or even make enemies. I have a lot of thoughts that I wouldn’t share with just anybody. For example, I don’t typically hold forth about my political views with people whose views may be very different from mine. I’d rather maintain congenial relationships with neighbors and acquaintances than get in their face with my political opinions. And aside from politics, I confess to having less than kind assessments of some people that I wouldn’t think of expressing out loud.
And finally there was the issue of laziness. I figured blogging took effort and I wasn’t sure I wanted to commit to working that hard.
None of that has changed. What led me to actually start blogging was getting clear on what I would be blogging for. I recently had a lengthy email exchange with a friend of mine who has different views about some aspects of public health policy than I do. We exchanged multiple emails in the interest of thoroughly and respectfully sharing our views with each other so that they wouldn’t pop up unexpectedly as a point of contention in future conversations. I took a lot of time and gave a lot of thought to writing those emails. I wanted to be sure I was clear, objective, and respectful. I wrote and repeatedly rewrote each email before I was ready to hit Send. It was the most engaging, satisfying thing I’d done in months. When that exchange was finished, the morning I woke up and didn’t have another email to write, I missed it. That’s when it became clear to me that I wanted to make writing a regular practice.
So now I’m writing every day, not because there’s anything I need someone to know but because it’s engaging and because I want to get better at it. I could have learned to play an instrument, or speak a foreign language, or draw portraits — all options I considered, and which would have given me something to practice every day and, hopefully, get better at over time. But for now I’ve decided to write.