Author: Erica

No One Cares About Your Blog

Erica3 Comments

Wow… a bit harsh, right?

Let’s be honest: when you see a friend who posts on Facebook that they’ve just started a blog, what are your first thoughts?

A. Yay, I can’t wait to read it!

B. Yeah, yeah, whatever, we’ve all got a really super special blog that everyone should read…

I’ll admit – sometimes my answer is ‘B’ more often than ‘A.’

I’m not just trying to rag on your blog… this is a look in the mirror for me too, or at least, an honest look at my stats.

To be honest with you, I don’t have that many readers. I have a set number in my head of readers that will make me feel like my post was a “success,” and anything below kind of makes me feel like, “what was the point?” Are you other bloggers like that?

It is kind of sad when you take the time to thoughtfully (or perhaps even not-so-thoughtfully) write out something and no one reads it. Maybe for you, your post represented an epiphany you had, and you wanted to share that with the world.

Maybe you had a horrible, gut-wrenching experience that you want to share with the world – not because you want to brag about it, or make people feel sorry for you, but to give that experience new meaning in your life – to take that horrible event and give it a purpose. Maybe you want your story to inspire or help someone else, and blogging is the way you share that with others.

Maybe blogging is a way to just write – to write out your feelings and thoughts and fears and hopes and dreams… and maybe you hope that someone, anyone out there, will read it and feel the same way you do. Maybe you just want one person to connect with, to tell you you’re not crazy and that they understand what you’re going through.

In general, I want to avoid blogging just to get readers. Don’t get me wrong, I love having readers and reading the comments people leave me… but I don’t want to get to the point where I write just for the stats alone. Because if I did that, I’d probably stop writing. Or my writing wouldn’t be “me” anymore – I’d lose my authenticity just for higher numbers.

Unless you’re a blogging superstar (and yes, I’ll admit, I’m a bit jealous…), not everything you write is going to have hundreds of readers. And just because something doesn’t have a lot of readers, doesn’t mean it is garbage. It’s easy to look at success or failure through popularity. I have to remind myself that even if no one reads my blog, I still benefit from writing it. I get a chance to think deeply about issues that matter to me, and challenge myself to be a better person. I get a chance to sort through my emotions and feel better by the time I hit “Publish.”

If you are someone that did read this post, I thank you. Whether you are the only person or the 10,000th person who read this post, thanks for reading. I know I just went on about how it doesn’t matter if I get any readers, but that doesn’t take away the fact that it still feels good to have people read what I write. It’s very honoring to know that people took time from their busy lives to read something that I wrote.

Because if we’re honest, we don’t like to give up our time for others. Or is that just me? A lot of the time, we’re too busy to make time for others. I’m too busy writing my own blog posts to read the ones that you have just finished writing. I’m too busy trying to be heard to take time to listen.

So – where does that leave us… or me, for that matter? If you’ve made it this far into this post, obviously you are a person who’s willing to make time for others. You’ve made time for me, and I’m honored that you did. Maybe you’re a lot more selfless than I am. Maybe I need to be more like you, and read the thoughts, fears, hopes and dreams of others around me.

Alright, well, this post took an unexpected turn and I think I’ll leave it at that.

Anyone want to recommend some new blogs for me to read?

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Busiest I’ll Ever Be…

Erica1 Comment

Well friends, I am just about done with my first semester of grad school! I survived! (Though the online group project just about killed me…)

I have my last assignment due next Tuesday and then I get a three-week break until summer courses start! Those three weeks are going to be so amazing, I am already feeling less stressed now that most of my assignments are done!

I have to say, this is the busiest I have ever been in my life – I keep thinking at some point in my life the level of busy-ness will taper out, but so far that has not been my experience. When I was in college, I thought I was busy – and I couldn’t wait to graduate so I could be less busy.

While post-college life had less assignments and homework (until now), it did not prove to be less busy. Once I started teaching, I had never felt so busy or worked as hard! My first year teaching 2nd grade, I would spend hours and hours at home grading papers, I was tired all the time, I could never keep up!

Fast forward a few years to having a baby – I didn’t work during the first year of Calvin’s life, but I can assure you I felt like this would surely be the busiest and tiredest I would ever feel! Well… I was wrong yet again.

Here I am, working full-time, taking 6 graduate hours, and balancing life with a husband and almost-two year old… and despite being wrong in the past, I have convinced myself that surely THIS will be the busiest I will ever be in my life!

Is anyone else’s life panning out this way? Do you find yourself just waiting and looking forward to the times when you aren’t busy? Do you ever wish the next few weeks or months were already over? Do you try to catch your breath in the few unplanned hours or minutes of each week before plowing full steam ahead into the next one?

We recently had a reunion with our Re-Engage group- we hosted dinner at our house. (See my previous post about our Re-Engage experience.) We decided to go around and have every couple share how things were going in their marriage, post-Re-Engage. Almost every single person talked about how busy things were, and for some of us, we really noticed a negative effect on our marriages. I know for me, being so busy with school and work, I have certainly felt like I can’t find the time to do the things that were so strengthening to our marriage – things that we did while participating in Re-Engage. It’s hard to sincerely devote yourself to very many things, and as typically happens, sometimes we forsake important things (marriage, family, health) for urgent things (work, deadlines, homework.)

At that dinner we also discussed the concept of Sabbath – we discussed how hard it is these days to even take a few hours off to relax, and devoting an entire day to rest seemed practically impossible! It really got me thinking thought about why God required his people to take a Sabbath. I think sometimes we convince ourselves that the concept of a Sabbath is old and outdated, and that back then people didn’t have so many demands on their time like we do … but I think that is a myth. I think it’s a cop-out to not feel guilty for our busy-ness and to justify it by saying that’s just how our culture is.

I think God knows that being too busy hurts us – it hurts our relationships, our marriages, our families, our health even! Stress from being too busy can sometimes consume us – it makes us less patient, less Christ-like. We focus on the urgent and forget to take care of what’s most important – we get distracted. When I feel overwhelmed with busy-ness, I definitely don’t take care of myself the way I should – I don’t meditate, I don’t exercise, I don’t take time to pray or be with God.

I recognize all this, yet I feel so conflicted about how I could be less busy. I don’t want to give up my hobbies or time with friends – I don’t want to stop working or quit on grad school – I don’t want to give up being involved at my church when I feel called to do so. So what can I do to be less busy? What is God calling me to give up in my life so I can nurture the things in my life that are really important?

Today after work, I decided to try to find a few verses in the bible about busy-ness and here’s a few that stuck out to me:

Matthew 6:33 – But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Matthew 13:22 (Jesus explaining the parable of the Sower) – The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful.

I also found a great article online titled, “Busyness Is Not a Spiritual Gift.” It is a great read and really articulated some of the things I had been thinking about nicely. 

I think the next steps for me will be to really sort out my priorities and decide what is most important – then take a good look at my actions to see if they align with those priorities. As the article mentions, God might want me to get rid of some of the things that I really love, and even some things that are good, which is why this is so hard. But I think it comes down to having faith that God knows what is best, and that seeking Him first really will let the other things in my life fall into place.

There’s so much more I could say about this, but I will leave it at that for now. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this if you want to share.

 

 

 

 

 

Imposter Syndrome X 3

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I just had a live community call of librarians – it is a once a month thing for new librarians to get together and talk about their successes and struggles, and to support each other in their new careers. After hearing people share some of their failures, I spoke up on the call and told everyone that I actually felt really encouraged to hear that people were brave enough to try something they might fail at.

I personally find myself avoiding being put into situations where I feel I might fail, as if failure would be the worst thing that could possibly happen to me. Anyone else out there like that?

Another librarian responded to my comment, sharing a failure she had experienced during a presentation, and she mentioned the idea of Imposter syndrome. There are a lot of definitions of imposter syndrome that you can find online, but the general idea is that you believe most of your achievements are a fluke, despite evidence that you are skilled and competent. You feel you don’t deserve recognition for the things you achieve, and you continually feel pressure to prove yourself to others.

It’s like a lightbulb went off in my head – I feel like I’ve been experiencing this in my job. And the more I thought about it, the more it makes absolute sense. I got hired for my job without having the required degree listed in the job posting, or even any library experience. I’m working on my degree now, and have about 8 months of experience at this point –  but I’m kind of doing it “backwards” so to speak. There are many times I don’t know exactly how to do something, and I start to worry that maybe someone made a mistake somewhere…

At the end of the call, it was mentioned that another upcoming call is happening later this month, specifically on the topic of Imposter Syndrome. (What a coincidence!) To me, this caused more lightbulbs to go off in my head – okay, I feel like someone’s trying to get my attention.

After the call, I went downstairs for my noon shift at the research desk. There are typically many college students milling around on this floor, and as two students were walking by, I overheard one of them say to another, “Have you ever heard of Imposter Syndrome?” (I’M NOT EVEN KIDDING, THIS REALLY HAPPENED!) At this point, I was like, “I have got to research Imposter Syndrome!”

Is it too bold to say that God wants me to think about this today? I’m gonna say that He does – I had it mentioned to me three different times today in the span of about 30 minutes.

I found an article online that recommended a book called, “The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: Why Capable People Suffer from the Imposter Syndrome and how to Thrive in Spite of It.” The book identifies five types of people who may commonly suffer from Imposter Syndrome, and two of the types I immediately identified with:

  • The Perfectionist
  • The Natural Genius

It’s easy to understand why a perfectionist would have Imposter Syndrome – they set excessively high goals for themselves and if they don’t meet those goals 100%, they can feel like a failure. No matter how good they are at something, they always think about how they could be better.

The natural genius is the type of person who if they have to work hard at something, may feel like they are automatically bad at it. This is a person for whom many things have come easy, for example, maybe they always got straight A’s in school. So the minute they realize something doesn’t come naturally, they assume they should avoid it because they aren’t already good at it, and probably never will be.

I know I may get some flack for saying I connect with the natural genius one, but I really do. I never struggled in school until I got to 8th grade math, and things did not come as easily to me – I wasn’t the “best” in the class anymore. I distinctly remember just deciding that I didn’t like math because I wasn’t good at it. This happened for me later in high school Chemistry, and I even decided I shouldn’t pursue becoming a veterinarian because I wasn’t good at science. (I had always thought I might be a vet, or an artist for Disney, I loved to draw!)

So I’ve definitely got some things to think about today – the main takeaways for me are:

  1. It’s okay to not be the best at something – and it doesn’t mean that you aren’t still very good at it.
  2. It’s okay to be a work in progress and still be learning.
  3. I don’t have to avoid something just because it is a challenge – there are a lot of things I’m naturally good at, but if I avoid the things that take a bit more work, I’ll never know how good I could have been at them if I’d only tried.
  4. It’s okay to try and fail. It doesn’t make me a failure.

 

Even though it puts me out of my comfort zone, I’m going to keep trying to do things I’m not always good at. This can be something as simple as playing a board game I know I’m going to lose, because I’m not good at it. (I’ll admit, I’m the type of person who only wants to play games I can win!) Or, it can look like coming to my job every day and being brave enough to try new things, and even fail at some.

P.S. I’m also a Ravenclaw, so I obviously take a lot of pride in being “smart” and feeling like I know what I’m doing… I assume Gryffindors are more comfortable with taking chances and failure…