Thoughts
It was a productive day: (1) cleaned up my overgrown front yard, (2) made a roasted braised duck for dinner, and (3) prepped a lasagna for the freezer. I think I deserve a gold star!
Most weekends go like this - Saturday is my carefree day off to enjoy, relax, and recover from the work week; Sunday is when I work on all those things I neglected during the past week like laundry, cleaning, and meal prep for the week.
Why I Decided to Start Microblogging
Feb 6, 2021Looking back on my fateful decision seven months ago to dive head first into the world of microblogging there were several motivators for why I finally decided to pull the trigger and set up my own domain and a Micro.blog account. Hopefully by documenting them here they can serve as a guiding light for me as I set out to make writing a more regular habit in 2021.
First and foremost this gives me a platform for capturing my thoughts while owning the material. As I’ve gotten older life has gotten more complicated and I would like to give writing a try as a therapeutic mechanism for working through all of the interdependencies and intricacies of the various roles, responsibilities, and interests in my life. I want to do this in a way where I’m not beholden to the large social media companies or to a social following. In essence my writing should be as raw and unfiltered as it needs to be, as much as I’m comfortable sharing with the rest of the world.
Second is the community here at Micro.blog. Based on my periodic browsing of the Discover timeline I see a vibrant, diverse, thoughtful collective of contributors making their own unique mark on the world and sharing their knowledge and experiences with others. There are no ads, trolls, and other negative aspects commonly seen at the usual social media suspects. It is these knocks that have discouraged me from actively sharing my life on the internet. Hopefully I can grow as a more well-rounded, enlightened, and cosmopolitan person by engaging in meaningful dialogue with this community.
Third is the opportunity to assimilate the knowledge and lessons learned from my life journey thus far and share that wisdom with the world. In particular two areas that I have a prominent interest in are personal finance and people dynamics. It is unfortunate that these topics are not properly covered as a part of the education system in the States. Having a sound foundation in financial basics is vital for responsible fiscal management as well as growing one’s net worth. Another gap is how to work alongside, get along with, and interact with people and how that manifests itself through team dynamics, leadership, and emotional intelligence. I’m becoming more convinced by the day that this set of soft skills is equally or even more important than one’s technical training given its general applicability and pervasiveness in life whether it’s at school, home, work, basically anywhere you interact with others. As I continue to learn I hope to collect this information for anyone interested in short-circuiting their own learning curve.
My last motivation is to formally document my life story so that I or this blog can tell it when the need arises, something akin to a digital time capsule. Watching my parents get older from afar I’ve recently found myself wondering what nuggets of sage advice or profound anecdotes from their younger days will be lost, whether it’s from them not having the chance to share it with me or me forgetting the details of a story from a long time ago. By jotting down my own stories here and now there will be a permanent record that I or my loved ones can reference in the future to relive and recount what makes me uniquely me, to be that reminder of who I am in case I lose my way or forget due to old age.
I can probably come up with additional reasons to start microblogging but I think there’s enough here for me to hang onto. Enough talk, no more excuses, stop procrastinating - it’s time to seize the moment and move out on this grand plan. Whether I’m embarking on this on my own or with anonymous support from this community I wholeheartedly believe that this will not only be a fruitful, entertaining, and relaxing exercise but also something my future self will be grateful to my present self for taking on this endeavor. As they say the journey is more important than the final destination.