jessa

I kept thinking about how I reached more than a thousand followers on my first website (which was memorialized here), and that was before most of my circle camped out on Facebook/Instagram (they were mostly on Twitter then).

A thousand followers.

And I’ve been blogging for almost 6 years now, and I only have ~10 readers daily, with around 400 subscribers (some of whom I’m sure are bots/spam).

I’m unsure what I really want to achieve: increase my readership or just the number of subscribers? My most productive year was 2021, when I was able to blog almost daily and have a 1:1 engagement. But since then, visits have tapered off, and I haven’t been able to return to that kind of activity here.

Does it make me sad?

Sometimes.

Because I wish I could reach more people than I would admit to.

And what’s funny is that Joan Westenberg’s post for today was about getting the things you want, then the feeling you derive from it fades, and so you chase the next thing. Joan wrote about getting the thing you want, watching the feeling fade, then chasing the next thing. I laughed because I recognized myself immediately. It was looking right into a mirror. Because when I get out of bed, I reach for my phone and check my analytics on WordPress, Instagram, and YouTube.

I’m the same hamster in the wheel.

The only antidote I see against this crazy passion towards winning the numbers is to redefine what I really want to achieve here. If even just one person won’t read this blog post, would I consider myself a poor writer? There are probably just too many people sharing the same pie. And like me, we don’t have time anymore to engage with what everyone puts out on the internet, do we?

So okay, I better snap out of it.

My sister said it plainly: I’m probably writing for the wrong audience, publishing at the wrong time. Well, probably I am, and should adjust the time when I publish my post. It may sound like I am optimizing, but maybe I am. I just want to reach the right people, that’s all. And they’re probably asleep once I let out mine into the wide web, and eventually be buried by more and more stuff like mine by the time my supposed audience wakes up.

I just miss having people tell me they’d miss my writing if I stop. Even just one person. That would probably make a difference.

But then, as Joan Westenberg wrote, “…you get the thin, the feeling fades, you chase the next thing.”

Probably, whatever this feeling is now will just fade.

I better go back to writing.