I heard this story the other day of two old friends.

These two old friends got to talking and reminiscing over their past.  They were talking about their families and the good old times back when they were in high school.

As they were talking, they recalled a popular girl back in high school.

“Sam, you remember Jenny from High School?  I saw her the other day.”  Says Mike.

“Sam replies, “Of course, I remember.  I used to have a huge crush on her in high school.  You know, I still think about her sometimes.”

Mike looks at his friend quizzically.

“You know, I always knew you had feelings for her, but I thought you’d have forgotten all about her by now.  After all, it’s been years.”

“Well, yes.  It’s been a long time, but I still remember her.  You know, I was always a shy kid in High School.  It took me a long time to work up the courage to say anything to her.  I finally, wrote this beautiful poem, and gave it to her one day after gym class.”

Mike’s face took on an odd expression.  “You know, Sam.  I was there after you gave her that note.  I never wanted to tell you this because I knew how much you cared for her and I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.  But after all these years, I have to tell you.  After you walked alway, Jenny showed your note to her friends and they were laughing at you.”

Sam looked back at his friend, “Thank you for telling me this, Mike.  But I already knew.  I figured that was her business, not mine.”

The moral of this story is:  You are what you love, not what loves you.

About Love and Blogging

You may ask, what does this story have to do with blogging.

Did you know that there are millions of blogs created every day?  And statistically, something like 90% of these blogs fail in the first 3 months.  Either the bloggers get discouraged, or lose their passion for their blog.  Some just die off in neglect.

Perhaps these blogs didn’t get the traffic their owners expected.  Or they didn’t bring in the dream income we hear about whispered about the internet.  Whatever the reason, I often suspect that these blogs are the victims of these external factors.

Even I fall victim to scanning my stats and constantly watching if my traffic is growing on a daily basis.

But sometimes we need to take a step back from this and remember that we are what we love.

In the blogosphere, the question is what is your blog giving to others, not what others are giving to your blog?

Over time, I find the most rewarding part of blogging is not how much traffic I get, or how much income I am receiving from the blog.  The reward is in answering my comments.  The reward is in seeing someone say thanks for this valuable resource.  The reward is in seeing someone find a job through the job board.

Change the Question

Often, we get caught up in asking questions like the following:

• How much traffic do I get?
• How much income am I earning?
• How many backlinks do I have?
• What is my blog doing for me?

The question I like to ask is not what is my blog doing for me.  The question is what is my blog doing for all of you?

Change the question:

• What am I teaching people who read my blog?
• How am I helping others who visit my blog?
• What can I do to improve my blog for the readers?
• What can I do for you?

As long as I keep asking that question it makes it easy to love blogging.  It makes it that much easier to be passionate about blogging and keeping the blog alive.

When we ask the second set of questions, it makes it easier to create content, make pillar articles, tutorials, posts that add value to my blog.  It cuts away trying to hype up things to sell and instead focuses on different ways to bring value to the readers.

We are what we love.  Not what loves us.

 

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• Kick Start Your Blog by Embracing the Nobodies (kikolani.com)
• The Hole On Most Blogs (Including Mine) That Needs To Be Filled (smartpassiveincome.com)