Why I Blog

Living with seven other people in California has led to a lot of interesting conversations; many more than I’m used to. Lately, some of those conversations have been about blogging. Specifically, why I blog and why I think others should too. Here are a few thoughts I have on the subject.

1. Write More Better

The primary reason I started my blog was to become a better writer. Secondary reasons included helping people, building something new (always fun), and gaining a following. Becoming a better writer, however, was always first on my list – by a long shot.

Before writing this post I asked myself why becoming a better writer was so important to me. To be honest I wasn’t really sure at the time, and I’m still not. It might be because I love learning and improving on skills, it might be because I want to be better at communicating with others, or it might be something entirely different. All I know is that I have a desire to improve my writing, and so far I’ve had success at doing that (in my opinion).

2. Increased Understanding

One of the things that wasn’t clear to me before starting a blog was how much it would help me understand my thoughts and feelings. There is nothing better than writing about something that has been stewing around in my head for days or weeks.

Writing about a subject helps because writing is hard. Harder than you probably expect. Writing requires a strong understanding of the subject at hand, which forces critical thinking and questioning. For objective topics like programming this helps to increase understanding of the facts and data, while writing about personal experiences helps to understand thoughts and feelings.

3. Helping People

One of the other reasons I started this blog was to help others. I often tell people that I’m addicted to learning; it gives me feelings of accomplishment and satisfaction to learn something new, and I often feel the desire to share new knowledge with others.

After spending hours on a solution to a hard problem it feels good to write a blog post detailing what went wrong, and how I solved it. I do this with hope that someone with the same problem will find my post and save themselves a lot of time and frustration. It also makes my day when someone leaves a comment saying something as simple as “Thanks, this helped me a lot”.

Parting Words

I’ve been blogging for the past two years of my life and love it. There have been dry spells from time to time, but overall I’ve stuck with it and am proud of what I’ve created.

I hope my words have inspired you to start a blog of your own because trust me, you’ll be glad you did.