I was just watching a video about starting your own business by Heather B Armstrong — the founder of the blog Dooce.
Her husband quit his day-job to make Dooce.com their full-time gig – and they both live very comfortably from it.
Pangs of jealousy swept over me as I watched the video — how simply perfect would it be to be able to write, connect, photograph, make people laugh, cry, swoon (I don’t know that word just typed itself for no apparent reason) and be paid to do it — and to do so alongside your partner — and to create, and do what you love full-time.
I have always subscribed to the theory – “Do what you love and the money will follow” —- and today, I noticed something.
I am not actually doing that.
How do I expect money to follow me anywhere. I’m doing what, … well, I can do – I’m doing stuff I can do for a living, but there is no passion there. When did I become someone that would just trapse through and do boring stuff because “I have to”
Where has my belief in the magic of the world gone?
I’ll tell you where it’s gone, it’s gone to buggery since I stopped blogging!
Before taking up part-time work, when I was full-time at home, this blog was my passion. I wrote from the heart, daily, sometimes a few times daily – I was meeting fantastic people and connecting with others through my stories, I’d learn about their stories.
I became obsessed by blogging, and found myself on addicted grounds more than once.
I tried to find a healthy balance, and usually that was ‘all or nothing’
Now my blogposts are few and far between — and I’m feeling more lost in my world than I did when I blogged.
When I blogged, I had a fire in my belly, a spring in my step, and cliches in my heart. When I blogged, I was immersed in the people I was connecting with, inspired by the conversations I had with my readers and mesmerised by the ability to connect so instantly via the written word.
Why the frickin’ hell did I stop that?
7 Comments
We miss you Sharni!!!!
I scored two paid writing gigs through the blogosphere today – shock, horror, disbelief!
How awesome Alex! Well deserved, you have made a comeback with a vengeance, so I see it is indeed possible!! I have a lot of catching up to do on your blog I might add, how dare stuff get in the way!
Blogging fulfills me in ways I never imagined. It’s the thing that I do for me, just for me. Incredibly it’s made a lot of my (real life) relationships better too. My husband is proud of what I write and my friends see another dimension too.
So true Corinne! And hello! See I have missed contact with wonderful peeps like you, I have been reading your blog from time to time – but not as often as I would like (which was hello part of my daily ritual when time was my own!)
I hear ya!
I miss you Sharni….I miss your fire in your belly (of course you I know it’s still there, just not HERE as much as it was!) I loved your run for Afghan Writers, your SEX IN THE COUNTRY photo shoot and every other thing you have dreamed up. And I know, if you put your mind to it, you could dream up “paid” gigs too! But I also know that sometimes we have to do other things in order to get to where we want to go. Just don’t let those other things lead you too far away from HERE, because I think HERE is where it’s at for YOU and where the opportunities exist for you! Love to you from Seattle!
I believe in you xxx