I Did It. I Blogged Every Day for a Whole Year

Today is Saturday, February 22, 2014.

Well, folks, I did it. 

I started this blog on February 21, 2013, with a vow to myself to write a blog entry every day.  I actually started one other blog last April, so have kept myself quite busy publishing not one, but two blog posts each day.  My year for this blog is up today. 

The idea of writing a blog daily for a year came from author Nicole Helget, who has just had her third novel published.  I had promised myself that I was going to write when I retired, but I hadn't yet followed through with my promise.  The blog, with it's self-imposed publishing deadline, provided the perfect means for me to follow through in a timely and measurable way.  

The most obvious benefit of having done a blog post each and every day over the past year has been proving to myself that I can write on demand, and that I can find all kinds of things to write about.  I've developed the habit of writing every day, which is awfully good discipline.  Some of these posts have taken just about all day to churn out.  Others were dashed off in 30-40 minutes.  Some took quite a bit of research to produce, while others came from inside of me.  Some may be seeds of a future book, but all have been good experience. 

Writing a blog has been beneficial in one other important way.  It has facilitated and augmented an inner process that I've been going through, not only transitioning from teacher to writer, but also in many ways rebuilding my life and processing some of the lessons in my life so that I can apply them in a practical way to create my future.  I've been able to process a lot of memories of living in Japan, record and interpret some important dreams, and organize my thoughts on a number of different topics.  I've written about a number of different personal qualities in the past year: love, attachment and detachment, happiness, grace, etc.  I may have seemed like a know-it-all at times, but know that I was writing more for myself than for anyone else.  What I have gained is a sense of clarity about those qualities and their importance in my life. 

I will be continuing this blog in the future, just not every day.  My intention is to post here on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays each week.  The idea is to keep the momentum going, but reduce my blogging just enough to make room in my schedule for other projects.  

My readers haven't left too many comments, so I sometimes wonder how many people are actually reading these blog entries.  The statistics show that a number of them have had several hundred clicks.  Every one has had at least one reader.   In any event, I'd like to thank you, my readers, for following me on this blog.  Without you, this would just be a private journal.  Because of you, this blog is also an opportunity for me to serve others.  :-)