What Are You Doing It For?

The other day I made a decision to take site meter off my blog.

True it had been fun seeing some of the search items and referrals that had brought people to this blog.

For example, "Log riders waltz" was believe it or not, the top thing that brought people here. And of course there were the referrals from the other great blogs I read that link to me and to those bloggers, a big THANK YUH. THANKYUHVUREEMUCH.

But truth be told, I found myself falling into a trap. It was the "how many people are reading my blog?" trap. And I had to pause and ask myself if I really cared about that. The truth was, I didn't.

I understand why other bloggers do care about this. Everybody's motivation for having a blog is different. Maybe you're trying to make a business out of your blogging, or have a career in writing, or want to sell ads on your blog. In some cases, fact is the numbers count.

But ultimately the reason I started this blog was that I needed to start writing again. Period. A blog really only thrives when it's updated regularly, and because of that, I knew I'd be less likely to slack off. And if I didn't slack off, then it stood to reason that I'd get writing again in a real way.

And sure enough, that's what's happened to a degree. All those ideas that I thought were going nowhere actually do have some exciting prospects. The ice of my creative inertia has begun to melt.

So with this in mind, I had to get really honest with myself. If a self-rehabilitation of sorts was the objective of the blog, then why would I care how many people were reading it? It's nice to be read. But 6 vs 60 isn't really what it's about to me. This blog is in many respects, a completely and utterly selfish endeavour on my part, a realm that is entirely mine to do with as I please.

Frankly that's enough. I knew for certain that was the case when I went to my blog the next day. I didn't see the site meter icon and could really only feel one thing.

Relief.