I've been "absent" here for a couple of days because my work has been calling to me.
I have been self-employed since the 1990's, and one of the things you really learn is that in order to succeed at being self-employed, you have to be willing to set priorities and then stick to them.
A lot of people are not cut out for self-employment, temperament wise. For example, if you like a lot of stability and predictability, then it's not for you. If you prefer to leave your work AT work, self-employment is not for you.
I have been absent because I have several events "colliding," at the same time. Mt wife's non-profit organization is having its 20th anniversary and I helping with that; there is a huge bulge of paperwork (with a deadline) I have to deal with in my own business... and tomorrow and Sunday I am also "representing" my artwork in the annual Gathering of The Labyrinth Society. Even though that gathering is virtual this year, I am still expected to be present in our "virtual booth" in the "world" they have created via Topia.
Even so, I am finding myself being slightly annoyed with myself for not keeping the promise I made to myself to blog daily.
But when you have a lot of things going on, and many of them are unpredictable, you can't always keep these promises.
Which all reminds me of one of the lessons I learned from my Dad, when I was a teenager: "Always do you best... but be aware that sometimes even your BEST may not be enough!"
I think he was trying to teach me that we don't get to control all the variables and uncertainties, all the time — sometimes we just have to be willing to accept that we did our best... and then let go of any attachment we might have to ensuring a perfect outcome.
At this point, I am just hoping for a good outcome!
In some ways, our content creation efforts here on Steemit work the same way. We might create what we feel is the best post ever and yet it doesn't get the attention or votes we had hoped... And so, we have to rest satisfied that we did do our best, and we get to tray again next time!
Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!
How about YOU? Do you always do your best? When you do, are you also OK with it sometimes not being enough? Or do you try to control EVERYthing in your surroundings? Do leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!
(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — NOT A CROSSPOST!!!)
Created at 20211022 22:35 PDT
x284
It really is amazing that you promised to blog everyday because sometimes even what to write is an issue for me. Like you rightly pointed out, you can't control the unpredictabilities and I have made peace with posting and not necessarily earning much on it as long as my lost doesn't pay out with $0. You making what you think is the best may not be what the audience necessarily like and what you didn't really put much effort in can sometimes turn out to be appealing to readers.
I hope your wife's non profit's 20th anniversary turns out better than planned.
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Thank you for the good wishes @chenty.
Writing is not easy for everyone; I happened to have started when I was quite young, writing a journal in old school notebooks that still had blank unused pages in them. In my start here on Steemit I actually had a good number of posts that ended with $0.00 even though I put a lot of effort into them... but I still kept going.
It's difficult to predict what people will like, but I have generally found that human stories have a lot of appeal, perhaps because the things that happen to us in daily life tends to be easy to relate to.
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Wow then you must have thought about publishing at some point that is if you aren't publishing already.
Thank you for this suggestion. I'll see if I can make some posts about that.
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