I’ve written in the past about why I decided to start a blog, but a blog post written by Matt Mullenweg (yes, that Matt Mullenweg who is a founding developer of WordPress) sums up why I blog better than anything I could write.  He advises us not to write with the hope of going viral. Instead, he suggests writing for two people – yourself and a single person you would consider the perfect person to read what you write.

I couldn’t agree more.

I didn’t start my blog with the hope of going viral or becoming some famous celebrity on the internet (whatever that means). I started my blog for two reasons:

1. As a personal journal where I could collect my thoughts, write them down, and share them. It has forced me to think critically about important topics and refine my point of view. In addition, it has been a great way to point people to useful resources I’ve found, collected or commented on. Instead of directing them toward a Google search, I can point them to an article I’ve written to get more information and understand my opinion.
2. I’m writing to create a digital record that future generations can read to understand more about who I was from the source, not from third parties or a random collection of social media posts or comments strewn about the internet.

I agree that once you stop writing to “go viral”, the process of starting a blog and keeping up with it become a lot easier. So if you want to start but are struggling with what to write about, quit stressing and just do it. It’s your blog, so write about what you want, and don’t worry if it never, ever goes viral. It’s still a digital record that you, your future self, and future generations can look back at to understand who you were at that point in time.