Our Relationship

For more than a year, this blog has been written pretty exclusively for an audience of one – me. It’s been my place of self-improvement, and benefits gained by others have been purely coincidental.

However, whether you realize it or not, you – my audience of anyone who reads this besides me – have been essential to my process. You see, this could just as easily have been a journal, rather than a blog. I could have written this on my own computer, never posted it publicly. But if I had, it wouldn’t have been nearly as good. If I’m being honest, it probably wouldn’t have lasted.

I’ve relied on knowing that someone might read this, even though I wrote it only for myself. I rely on that to keep me honest, keep me positive, and keep me consistent. Knowing a hypothetical audience exists meant that I couldn’t go to dark places that my mind might tend to wander if it knows its alone. It meant I had to find progress every day. And sharing it with people who know me (family, friends, and co-workers all read this blog) meant I couldn’t bullshit. It would be easy to write something positive about my ascent up Mount Everest, except I haven’t done that.

So you’ve provided tremendous value to me, just by existing. Hopefully I’ve provided value in return, but I think the scales are severely tilted to my advantage.

What I hope to give back is a certain clarity of thought. I am stumbling around in the dark, often questioning my place in the world and how I can best navigate these strange waters. This blog is a way to leave trail markers behind me for those who follow, and to shine a signal light for those who have already gone before.

If you have questions that are like mine, even adjacent to being like mine, then you may find something to work with here. I won’t say “answers” because I’m not sure I’ve ever provided any. But maybe I’ve given what I’ve tried to give – which is a new angle from which to look at the question in the first place.