Ten years ago, I published my first post in this blog titled Set up your own server. It was related to my work as a software developer. Around that time I also began my journey in self development and personal finance, and started publishing posts as well about those topics. I named my blog Technology and Financial Independence (TechAndFI) as I am working in tech.
Origins
That would have been a good origin story of this blog, but that would not be completely accurate. The main reason why I started writing is because of ads. I was thinking of a way to earn money on the internet, and Google Ads were one of the more popular choices back then. So I bought a domain, set up a simple blog (with a single post), and sent my application to Google.
Denied.
The response from Google was along the lines of “your website sucks and has no content so you are not worthy of displaying our ads“. Refusing to give up, I rolled up my sleeves and started to write stuff, mostly about web development. I resolved to write at least 1 post per month, a promise that I have kept for a decade.
Months later, I got the hang of writing, and my interests evolved. I began adding posts about Personal Development and Financial Independence. The posts came from ideas that I gathered reading books, listening to podcasts, and other blog posts. Eventually the thought of re-submitting my Google Ads application completely disappeared, and I began writing for its own sake.
Ritual
Writing isn’t easy for me, but it is rewarding. Regardless of how busy life gets, I have this personal goal of posting once per month. To accomplish this, I used a technique I learned from the book Atomic Habits by James Clear. Which is: setting a small goal that is easy enough that you can do it regularly, but still moves you towards your larger goal. For me, this atomic habit was:
Every weekday, write or proofread a single sentence in the post.
That’s it. No expectations that what I wrote would be good, nor what I proofread will be edited. I even set it on weekdays only, because who wants to do this stuff on your weekends? This simple rule worked like magic: I was able to do one monthly post for 10 years.
Now, I don’t pretend that my posts are any good though. Writing is more for my own improvement than showing the world how knowledgeable I am. Publishing articles that suck is part of the process. This has been said very profoundly in one of my most favorite Reddit comments:
My best advice about writer’s block is: the reason you’re having a hard time writing is because of a conflict between the GOAL of writing well and the FEAR of writing badly.
By default, our instinct is to conquer the fear, but our feelings are much, much, less within our control than the goals we set, and since it’s the conflict BETWEEN the two forces blocking you, if you simply change your goal from “writing well” to “writing badly,” you will be a veritable fucking fountain of material, because guess what, man, we don’t like to admit it, because we’re raised to think lack of confidence is synonymous with paralysis, but, let’s just be honest with ourselves and each other: we can only hope to be good writers.
We can only ever hope and wish that will ever happen, that’s a bird in the bush. The one in the hand is: we suck. We are terrified we suck, and that terror is oppressive and pervasive because we can VERY WELL see the possibility that we suck.
We are well acquainted with it. We know how we suck like the backs of our shitty, untalented hands. We could write a fucking book on how bad a book would be if we just wrote one instead of sitting at a desk scratching our dumb heads trying to figure out how, by some miracle, the next thing we type is going to be brilliant.
It isn’t going to be brilliant.
You stink. Prove it. It will go faster.And then, after you write something incredibly shitty in about six hours, it’s no problem making it better in passes, because in addition to being absolutely untalented, you are also a mean, petty CRITIC. You know how you suck and you know how everything sucks and when you see something that sucks, you know exactly how to fix it, because you’re an asshole.
So that is my advice about getting unblocked. Switch from team “I will one day write something good” to team “I have no choice but to write a piece of shit” and then take off your “bad writer” hat and replace it with a “petty critic” hat and go to town on that poor hack’s draft and that’s your second draft.
Fifteen drafts later, or whenever someone paying you starts yelling at you, who knows, maybe the piece of shit will be good enough or maybe everyone in the world will turn out to be so hopelessly stupid that they think bad things are good and in any case, you get to spend so much less time at a keyboard and so much more at a bar where you really belong because medicine because childhood trauma because the Supreme Court didn’t make abortion an option until your unwanted ass was in its third trimester. Happy hunting and pecking!
Dan Harmon – Reddit AMA
Writing is a skill, and like any skill, you improve the more you do it.
Sharing
This blog serves as a way for me to solidify the knowledge I gained through life. As was said, we learn best when we teach others. It doesn’t matter if these are read by others or not, what matters is that these are made available to the wider world. And many times the person who learns from it is also me, by reading a post I wrote years ago to help with today’s problems.
These posts are just my own thoughts processing the things I learned, identifying my own weaknesses, and exploring solutions to overcome them. Having them out for the world to see is a way for others to find them when they encounter the same problems that I did. That is the reason why I usually write sentences with “we” as opposed to “I”, as these concepts apply not only to myself, but perhaps for many others as well.
A commonplace book is a notebook that contains bits and pieces of useful information that the owner encounters. I think of this blog as very similar to this concept, but with full paragraphs instead of phrases. The writing is also publicly exposed instead of it hiding behind a physical journal. In addition to this blog though, I also keep a small physical notebook to jot down notes/quotes that I find interesting.
Time Capsule
When you want to create a time capsule, what do you usually put in? Placed inside are usually photos, as a snapshot of what everything looked like back then. While these images can trigger nostalgia, I believe that written material is a much better alternative.
Photos can capture what you look like in the past, but only writing can capture your thoughts and feelings at that moment.
As we grow old, not only do we look different, but also think different. While we keep our core person (the Stoic logos) intact, our worldview constantly change as we experience life. Attitudes and beliefs that we once held are (hopefully) replaced by better ones. Grievances and heavy emotions eventually fade. These things are difficult to see in your old photos, but become more apparent as you read how you write in the past.
Words, and how you craft them, reveal how you think and how you feel. Does it read like something from an immature person? Or from someone who had gone through so much and learned how to overcome them? For me, writing not just solidifies learning. It also creates snapshots in time to major events and ideas. It is the ultimate time capsule.
Sometimes, it is surprising how your younger self is still very similar to who you are now. Take for instance the time when I opened a letter I wrote to myself 17 years ago. Re-reading it again, I am amazed at the similarities to how my thoughts flowed back then to my writings today. And the differences were a stark reminder to how long my journey had been and how I had grown and changed.
And so, this is why I continue to write. I believe everyone should write something. The vehicle, whether a diary, a journal, or a blog does not matter. What is important is you imprint your knowledge and emotions in time. We are all going to be forgotten in three generations, but the things we write can endure for much longer.
Photo by Suzy Hazelwood