Category: Musing

Most Likes

So on April 20th, on the day after my 5th anniversary with WordPress, I also received the most likes on a single post in a single day. 14 likes. It’s crazy. Likes can vary from post to post but to put that in perspective, my posts typically receive 14 likes in their lifetime. If you go through my blog, posts that have been there months or even years have typically 13 to 14 likes. My posts from 5 years ago? Most have zero likes, the best typically had one. What was I writing at the time? Back then, I had word of the days and poetry commentary (if I even chose to comment on it). It was around May that I started to expand my writing and try to have some semblance of my own thoughts and it is around this time I started getting more than a couple likes on my posts. A like back then feels just as good as it does now and with my blog growing, it is satisfying to take a look back every once in a while. Some of you have been with me since the very beginning and I do notice, I see your likes pop up time and time again and I appreciate the support; I may not call anyone out individually, but as a blogger it’s gratifying to know that whatever I post, you are following me for me and not a persona I would like people to believe I am. There is a reason my domain is my name.

On the back-end, I do enjoy combing over the stats. Typically after a post, I check each day to see the views and the comments left. I see what content people prefer and do my best to meet demand (I actually have no idea what demand is). Another favorite of mine as far as data is concerned is looking at the map to see where the views are coming from. While the majority of views come from the US, at this point my blog has been seen by many nations throughout the world. And that’s what I love about blogging. Is, for every barrier we put up, we often find we have more in common than we do not.

My most popular posts seem to be my update posts. Clunky at first, like a fine wine they have only gotten better over time. And they’re fun to write. As I sit in my room, sipping my cup of coffee, I’m in a state of pure bliss.

Each like helps support the blog, each follow helps grow the community. Part of my content restructuring involves ideas for long term growth. What happens when the blog surpasses 150 followers? 200? 500? And then finally, 1000? Honestly, I don’t expect much to change. The benefit of having more followers is a larger community. I’ve been talking primarily about likes but another aspect I’ve enjoyed is comments. At the moment, very few comment on my posts but when I started, no one commented on my post. As the blog grows, I expect an influx in comments and I’m looking forward to it. All in all, it’s an exciting time for this blog.

And that’s it! Remember, if you like my content, share it with your friends or give it a shout out on social media! The more traffic the site can get, the better. And remember to check out my Patreon and Ko-fi! I’m steadily improving both, so please take a look and provide your feedback! I can add tiers for Patreon and set goals for Ko-fi, so let me know what you’d like! Below is the link:

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Looking to contact me via email? Click below:

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Thanks for reading and feel free to comment below!

Anniversary Post

Yesterday was my Five year anniversary with WordPress! Typically I pay no mind but half a decade on the same platform is no joke! I remember when I first started, few views and no followers. I’d post and back then, I saw it more of a journal; never did I expect to grow a following. It’s taken five years but the blog is close to one hundred and fifty strong. I’ve never focused too much on promotion. I simply write and people come. That is beginning to shift as the Pandemic has upended a lot of my prior priorities and made me rethink life. The blog will always be around but I want it to gain wider traction in the coming years. As mentioned previously, I took a step back to rethink content, structure, and flow; slowly but surely that is coming to fruition. Part of my strategy is simply to mention to share the content if you like what you read and to subscribe to my Patreon or buy me a cup of coffee per post. I generate a little money via ad revenue but not enough to offset the cost of maintaining the blog. Profit? That has always been a dream. I’ve branched my writing to gain more exposure to my craft and in time, the landscape of my professional career will look drastically different. Writing has been my one constant. Wherever life has taken me, my blog has followed. It provides an inner peace and calm like I’ve never experienced before and I still remember how scared I was when I first started. Now, I simply type, edit, and publish.

My blog is increasingly growing more important from a career perspective. As of today, I have quit my job at the Call Center. Two Years of work and I had to trust my gut; it’s a strange feeling. I spent years building a safety net and the net has caught me, for now. This was the first major life decision I made in a very long time. It’s easy to stay, the tough part is knowing when to leave. During the middle of a Pandemic? Risky but necessary. I am retaking control of my narrative and course correcting. I’m happy to know I can do what’s right for myself and still believe in a better tomorrow.

Part of my plan for the blog was finding a way to put the why back into what I do. Why do I write? Why is a question everyone must ask. It’s the question I kept asking myself at the Call Center. If you don’t ask why, then one day you’ll wake up and realize you’re exactly where you were years ago. I forgot how to ask and took too much grace in listening to others rather than listening to myself. Thanks for sticking around this long and here’s to another 5 years!

If you want to support this blog; like, comment, and follow! Also, share! If you want to offer further support, below is a link to my Patreon and Ko-fi accounts!

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If you would like to reach out regarding collaborations, feel free to contact me directly through my email!

Contact me!!!

And as always, feel free to leave comments below; I read them all!

A look back at the last Decade

The planning phases are nearly done for my blog. I have posts planned and ideas for branching my writing outside of WordPress. It took a Pandemic, but I’m slowly getting there. As the world ends, I’ve had time to reflect on my current predicament and take stock, something I recommend everyone do periodically throughout their lives. As we delve into the new decade, I wanted to take a look back at how far I’ve come and what’s next.

10 years ago today

Twenty-Ten. My God. A lifetime ago. I was a Sophomore in High School and a scrawny cross country runner. I went to class, played video games, and ran; that was my life. Fall was cross country and come Spring, track and field. Socially awkward, I tried to impress everyone, and really only had a few close friends. I had a High School crush, someone I had known since the first grade, and life was relatively well. It was the year after my Freshman year and if my faded memory serves, I was happy. I’d go as far as saying it was the peak of my High School years. Then came Twenty-Eleven, my Junior year. This was the year it all began to fall apart. I brushed off my childhood crush and a week before homecoming found out she was dating another runner. Had I had the courage then, I wonder how things might have turned out differently. My whole love life in High School was a complete mess to be honest and what could’ve been never ended up being. My 4.0 GPA began to waver and I simply stopped caring whether I succeeded or failed. This was the year I applied for a couple colleges and chose Oregon State for my studies; it was also the year I tried to get my family to go to counseling. Looking back now, it’s clear that I was depressed, so as you can imagine, I was not in the best shape going into my Senior year.

Twenty-Twelve. Twenty-Twelve in all reality, was my ticket year. I had one singular goal; to graduate and prep for College. I grew out my hair to the point it covered my eyes and stumbled my way into College. Years of Alcohol abuse by my Father had left it’s mark and I had the foresight then to know I had to remove myself from the environment I was born into. My great escape, if you will.

Twenty-Twelve

This was my transition year. My Father, in all likelihood, was too drunk to notice I was even in college. Regardless, looking back, this was a fantastic year for me. I had successfully done it; I had removed myself from my haunting household. This was a year filled with chaos but I have always had the drive to be better and I used that as my compass. From pre-engineering to undeclared to pre-business, I had successfully transitioned to where I needed to be. The College of Business saved my life and while in the end I was ultimately pulled back to Hell with chains only Hellfire can break, I am still eternally grateful for Oregon State and the opportunities it provided me. I would say I could never repay the debt, but I’ve currently been paying that down over the last year and it’s now a much more manageable amount than it was. While I’ve told this story before, I think my experience throughout college is worth sharing. The more I tell it, the more I can see my growth and finds ways to improve even further. My Freshman year ended with a choice; continue College or drop out. If I continued, I would essentially be on my own, with sporadic funds from my parents. Dropping out would’ve been easy and I knew I would essentially be signing a death sentence for myself, so I chose to stay.

Twenty-Seventeen

… Five years later. Haha, you didn’t think I’d go over the entirety of my college career, again? Did you? If you’re curious, check out my Journey’s End series where I reflected upon my Journey through College as a final project for my Leadership class. The Twenty-Sixteen, Twenty-Seventeen school year was hands down the best year of my life. Everything that had been set in motion had come to pass and I not only realized that my dreams were achievable, but that I had actually accomplished them. Every goal I had set for myself, I had accomplished and I had become the man I had always wanted to be. Come June, when I walked, I hugged our Dean before throwing my cap up and grabbing life by the horns. But I had made a mistake and hindsight is always 20-20… For now, I could revel in my success and know, that despite every challenge I had faced, I had rose above and made it. Not simply tell myself I had made it, but actually made it.

Present Day

Ok, so not quite present day. In a nutshell, I graduated into a strong economy, and found work relatively quick. I’ve been with the same company, in the same role for the last 2 years now. On paper, I look great. And to be honest, I still believe I am in a good spot. I am ready for my next big adventure and I finally know how I want to get there. I want to go abroad to study Business Analytics or at the very least, go to Portland State University. After a Masters in Analytics, I want to further my studies with a PHD in Sustainability. And I am gearing up for logistics driven, supply chain management roles. Shame it took a Pandemic and weeks left to my own thoughts to realize this. But ultimately, I think this is where I will be happiest. I won’t know until I get there, but it’s the best picture I have had since graduation. And that was my Grand Mistake. I spent so much time doing what I thought I should do to be better, by the time I graduated I had no idea what I actually wanted. Necessary? Perhaps. But a part of me will always wonder.

In the Meantime….

I am applying my logistical and analytical mindset to this blog. Call it the missing link if you will, but I’m excited. I have time to write and I’m going to use it. The Pandemic has actually given me the courage to speak up when typically I have kept my head down and simply done my job. LinkedIn is becoming home to business related articles written from the heart (I’ve written one article, but the ideas are there!). No new poetry for a bit as I compile all the poems I’ve written into a book and publish hopefully during World Poetry month! And I’ve reformatted how I ask for donations based on feedback as I want to make it as easy as possible to support me as well as fun. I am cutting into my emergency fund right now, so any help is much appreciated. As always, comment below; I love hearing from everyone!

Payments!

This is still in its experimental phase! I am happy with what I have set up but if you have suggestions, please, please, please, tell me! How it’ll work is below is one link. Click on the link and you’ll be directed to my Payment page. Three options: Patreon, which is set up monthly, Ko-fi as a one time payment of increments of $3 so you can pay per post or whenever, and a simple payment button that’ll send the funds directly to my Paypal. In addition to the donation page being cleaned up, I will also be making it a point that if you like my content, please, please, please, share with your friends! I love having a community and my philosophy has typically been, “build it and they shall come”. Since I’ve finished up my planning phases for content flow and structure, I realized this is silly. Yes, great content is important, but sharing is part of human nature! So remember, give this blog a shout out anytime you think a friend might enjoy an article, it truly does help! And without further ado, below is the link to support this blog!

Support this blog!

Also, let me know what you think of the new format!

Little moments: Shared Birthdays

So as my blog expands and grows, I’d like to start doing more organized series. For the last month I’ve currently been brainstorming interesting topics that can continue indefinitely. With that, I’m proud to present, “little moments”, my attempt at capturing those moments that are all too fleeting.

Today is my birthday and it got me thinking, what is it that makes birthdays so great? Personally, the older I get, the less the allure presents have on me. Gifts are just objects and the best gifts are the ones that create memories. This is part one of this post. The simple act of sharing your birthday with others. To make plans and spend your time with good company. A few years ago my roommates baked me a cake and I almost cried at the thought of it. It was the best birthday I ever had and it was the kick-off to one of the best years of my life. Come last year my birthday was spent in Switzerland and that was an absolute blast. Little did I know the girls I went on the trip with would become good friends and my travel buddies for my time abroad.

Now come this year. My birthday has snuck up on me. I’m back in Portland for the first time in 5 years. Corvallis, Oregon has been my home, then Mosbach, Germany. It has been a long time since I’ve called Portland home. Most of my friends are in college or 8000km (about 5000 miles) away and spread across the globe. It’s hard to keep connected. As much as I’d love to say I’ll keep in touch with everyone, it simply isn’t practical. Life is full of tough choices.

So as you can imagine, I was a little nervous come today. While I don’t mind being alone, life is better in good company. And I was shocked that last week, at simply the mention of my birthday, my friends without hesitation were willing to drop what they’re doing to help celebrate my birthday with me. And as I imagine, this will be my best birthday yet.

Now, part two. Part two is simply sharing the same birthday with another human being; it’s a weird sensation. It is something you never really think about. Most of the time we are so focused on our big day that we simply forget about other people.

When I was in Germany there was another student who had the same birthday as me. The class sang happy birthday not to one, but two people. That’s awesome! When you think about the odds of having the same birthday as someone and actually meeting that person and becoming friends with them, it’s rare. As such, it should be something special. Now I’m on a mission to find someone who was born in 1993 and on September 16th because why not? Regardless, the point is, there is an instant connection when someone has the same birthday as you! Some people suck at finding ice breakers. Well guess what? This is an instant icebreaker! It’s fun.

Birthdays are meant to be shared in the company of others. Everyone deserves to be wished a happy birthday. Birthdays are a time to catch up, reminisce, and plan for the future. Some people dredge getting older but I say bring it on! I am 24 years old today and the 5 year plan I set when I was 20 is almost in need of an update. Time flies, so on this special day, I’d like to thank everyone who’s made my life a little brighter. Especially you, my followers. Blogging has been my passion for years but it wouldn’t be possible without your support. Every like, every follow, every comment has put a smile on my face and made me realize we are never truly alone, we just need to know where to look.