My 4 Hesitations with Writing Publicly

In my junior year of college I started a blog called The Art of Minimalism.

For almost a year and a half I completely threw myself into that project— publishing over 100 blog posts and trying to grow an audience for my writing.

Many of my readers were regulars and I enjoyed getting to know them through social media and email exchanges. 

And as a college kid, the small amount of extra money I earned was a nice bonus and a bit of validation that a few people in the “real world” thought my writing was valuable.

Despite all of these positives, my wife really had to talk me into blogging again. And the reasons for my hesitation had nothing to do with the time commitment.

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At first, I thought this blog was going to be my wife’s project and I would contribute ideas and general blogging advice from my past experience.

But more and more, she encouraged me to take on a bigger role and wanted me to write with her, and ultimately wanted it to be “our” blog and not just “hers.”

I was hesitant— for quite a while, actually.

But since this was months before our public launch, I decided to start writing without the pressure of publishing.

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From the very first blog post, I was hooked again. 

I’ll write about all of the reasons I love blogging in a future blog post. It truly is an experience and challenge that is unique from pretty much any other in my life.

But, the hesitations I mentioned earlier did not disappear. The more I wrote, the more they resurfaced.

And the closer it came to hitting publish, the more intense they felt.

For me, despite my outgoing personality, blogging feels like a very vulnerable public act. Even more than being the center of attention in a large group.

In the spirit of documenting my journey (as much for myself as for anyone else), I thought I would write down all of the reasons I was hesitant to start blogging again.

Maybe you’ll be able to relate to some of them in your own creative pursuits, or perhaps they will remind you (and me) that we are not alone when we approach a new pursuit and are met with internal resistance.

And now, my 4 biggest hesitations about blogging:

I might be wrong or naive

When I go back and read some of the essays I wrote on The Art of Minimalism, I actually cringe. Admittedly, sometimes I’m impressed too 🙂 But more often than not, I chuckle at the passion and idealism of my youth. It’s not that I completely disagree with much of what I wrote (though there are a few things), but I look back and now feel that some of my thoughts were naive, not yet fully formed, or overemphasized in light of other values I hold.

I think this is normal. Who you are now and what you believe today is almost certainly going to change and mature as you get older. The difference for me is that I have a fairly comprehensive written record of my thoughts from that era. And even for someone like me who doesn’t mind being wrong or somewhat in the spotlight, it feels a bit uncomfortable.

What I didn’t expect when I started blogging again, is the impact of being a decade older. When you are 17 or 18, you don’t really care about being wrong. You care more about passion and authenticity. But now I’m 31 and more self-conscious of how my peers perceive me. More than being wrong, I worry that some of my writing on this blog will appear naive to those who are further along in the journey of wisdom than I am.

I might change my mind

This next concern is related to the first one, but for me, it’s own category. While largely settled on the core questions of life (thanks to my Christian faith), my personality is one that both gravitates towards and enjoys rethinking past assumptions and trying on new ways of being as a way to grow.

What this means is that from time to time I will change my mind. And if you ask any politician, it’s a lot easier to walk back a past belief if there’s not a truck load of public documents that record everything you said and advocated for in the past. Changing your mind in public just feels uncomfortable and causes you to wonder how others think of you.

I might be thought of too highly or too lowly

Let me say sincerely that I do not think of myself as profound. One of the gifts of reading widely that has benefitted me most is the realization of all that I do not know and a recognition of true wisdom when I see it. I have seen these things, and I know most confidently that I am not even a footnote among the greats.

However, as soon as you start writing down your thoughts and sharing them publicly it is inevitable that 3 groups start forming. First, some people will perceive you as an authority with profound things to say. Others will see you as an ordinary person who thinks they have profound things to say. And the third group will see you as an ordinary person who occasionally says things in a helpful way. 

It is emphatically my desire to avoid being seen as belonging in either of those first two groups, and to earn my way squarely into the third. To the first group, my fear is that it would go to my head, and likely I would begin taking myself far too seriously. As unlikely the odds of such “success”, one can never be too careful. 

More realistically, I worry my peers will perceive my writing as me thinking that I have something profound to say, and then, upon reading my work, consider it to be trivial, trite, or naive. Any self-aware person recoils at the thought of others thinking of them this way, and so, there’s a certain risk that blogging carries in this regard.

My friends might see me differently

When I started writing again, I found myself wondering how different friends would perceive my words. Would those that know me best chuckle at the chasm between my lofty ideas and my ordinary life. Would they consider me a phony if I wrote about what I’ve learned or mistakes I’ve recognized, while sometimes failing to live up to these aspirations in real time?

Some friends will think I’ve taken an idea too far. Others will think I’ve not taken it far enough. Still others would say that I’ve not told the full story and should point beyond my point to a larger point. 

The more I start considering how others will judge my writing, the greater number of opinions I have to contend with. Pretty soon, the weight of all these opinions (if left unchecked) can make blogging feel like an act of managing expectations rather than a way to express yourself.

Conclusion

Well, here I am at the end of another blog post— still blogging despite those hesitations.

This article was actually the 2nd blog post I wrote after deciding to start writing again. It was a way for me to systematically work through my hesitations one at a time.

And afterwards, I felt so much more clarity around what had earlier felt like a general sense of unease.

That process— of writing to think more clearly, is one of the great benefits of blogging that I will write more about soon.