Why Blogging Stats Don’t Really Matter (Unless You’re Trying Very Hard to Sell Something)

Your blog is a window into your life through which you can reach others.

It doesn’t matter whether there’s a big crowd outside waving at you.

It doesn’t matter whether they are telling their friends and neighbors how interesting your blog is.

It doesn’t matter whether they clap like they clap for the doctors on the front line of the pandemic.

Or merely look at you in silence.

It doesn’t matter because success and popularity are variables beyond your control.

And they won’t make you a better, wiser, or happier person.

They are the stuff of pride.

You are not here because of that.

You are here to open yourself to others.

Sometimes, you’ll only open that window after you’ve put on something nice and done your hair.

At other times, you’ll open it from the depths of loneliness and sorrow.

Or from the shipwreck of a failure.

And the things that you say won’t be easy to say or pretty.

Still, the important thing is that you open it.

It doesn’t have to be every day or three times a week.

Now and then is good enough.

But open it.

Because you’re not creating content here and you’re not building an audience.

Don’t think of it in those terms.

Don’t reduce it to measurable goals and future satisfactions, in likes or shares.

Genuine human contact, friendship–even from a distance–is more important.

It cannot be quantified.

Take it from a recluse like me.

If you’re a writer or artist and use your blog to promote your art, that’s good.

But still don’t reduce it to that.

Our inner lives, like our houses, have more walls than windows.

They easily cast shadows.

Even if you are married and have kids, you still probably spend most of your life in your head.

Our thoughts, our hearts, remain secrets to others.

And it can get a bit lonely in there, within yourself.

It’s in our nature to hide our emotions and our thoughts—the deep ones.

But window-opening brings in fresh air and light.

So open that window.

Write a new post.

Show us glimpses of your life.

Or share your thoughts.

We don’t have to agree with you.

You don’t have to be popular.

You just have to be the you that you are when you are by yourself.

That’s the kind of window-opening that’s good and refreshing.

It doesn’t have to be anything special.

It just has to be you behind that window.

In all your beauty or darkness, in all your glory or shame.

Open that window.

Let us your life.