Hello Internet!
I hope everyone had a fantastic week, but if not, that’s okay. Not every week can be fantastic. Sometimes weeks are great, or good, or okay, or bad. That’s all fine too. I hope and strive for great weeks, but sometimes each day is bad. Or maybe it’s just a few minutes that are bad but it ruins days or even weeks. That’s important to keep in mind as well. Anyway I want to talk a little bit about my life, but before I get to that, I want to talk about the pieces that were published this week. Last Sunday, I published a Weekly Blog talking about President’s Day. If you like history and facts, I highly recommend that Weekly Blog. I talk a little bit about President’s Day itself and then go on to talk a lot about my favorite President, Theodore Roosevelt. I learned a ton from Teddy’s Wikipedia and there was so much I didn’t get to include so check that out after you read the Weekly Blog. On Wednesday, I published a Poem titled “Lost Love.” Whether you lost someone recently or have suffered from heartbreak, this poem is for you. Some poems are happy and some are sad. This one is definitely sad. On Thursday, I published a Special Weekly Blog Explaining My Dungeons and Dragons Inspired World. It had been almost two months since I published a chapter to my Dungeons and Dragons inspired Fantasy series and I thought this would be a good time to catch everyone up. On Friday, I followed it up by publishing a new chapter of that series titled Enter The Capital City [D&D]. If you have not read through the whole series, I highly recommend reading the Special Weekly Blog and then reading the newest chapter. The Special Weekly Blog also has a long list of all the pieces leading up to the newest chapter so if you have nothing to do this weekend, you can go ahead and read through all of it. Finally, on Saturday, I published the twenty-third chapter of my Pokémon Heart Gold/Soul Silver Fanfiction titled “Pokémon HGSS#23: Freezing Cold Gym Battle.” Jonathan and Beatrice have made it back to Mahogany Town weeks after they rescued Mahogany Town Gym Leader Pryce. It’s time to challenge the Gym and take on Pryce’s powerful Ice-Type Pokémon. Check out any or all of those pieces if you haven’t read them already.
Now I have talked about the concept of Growth before in several of my past Weekly Blogs. The one that springs to mind is a Weekly Blog I published back in September 2018, titled Celebrating Growth, but that was five months ago. I figured that there wasn’t much going on this week and that it might be a good time to kind of do an update Blog talking about stuff since then. This Weekly Blog might also touch on my mental health and life and stuff, so just be prepared that this Weekly Blog will get heavy. But on top of that I want to talk about growth and how sometimes growth can be strong in some places and weak in others. Growth is not always constant and people seem to grow at different paces.
If you’re like me, you probably have a ton of friends and people you know getting married and having children. Others are going to grad school and graduating. Some are starting careers and are planning their finances for the next few decades. There are people who are taking adulthood by storm and are accomplishing these things. Then there’s me (or you) who is sitting on the sideline watching people start families and careers as I use my college degree as a fancy wall hanging and that’s about it. My knowledge of Political Science makes me want to turn off the news and my knowledge of English lets me bring up strange references to books I read in college. I read “Fun Home” by Allison Bechdel. I can talk about The Bechdel test in the comments if anyone wants to, but for real, my career isn’t really taking off. And my love life!? Ha ha ha ha. Well let’s just say that unemployment doesn’t really do wonders for your self esteem or the ability to take care of yourself or others. As far as I know, women really don’t like men without jobs, but feel free to correct me if I’m wrong. Those are both major parts of my life that aren’t quite where I would want them to be which really dampens my self esteem and self worth. It’s a horrible cycle that feeds into itself. That being said, in a dark, dark cloud surrounding me there is a beacon of life, there is one aspect of my life where I’m seeing real growth. This website.
It may be silly to say but this website is one thing where I can see my efforts go in and results come out. Each week I write Weekly Blogs, Poetry, Writing Prompt based stories, and Fanfiction and I get to receive feedback almost immediately. As you, the reader, show up on the website and read my stuff and I see numbers go up. I get notifications as people read my stuff and “like” it and all that love fills my spirits. I feel validated as a writer knowing that people all over the world are reading the stuff I write and seem to enjoy it. It’s really nice. Then I watch the stats on WordPress week after week. Writing on WordPress is not about the numbers, but I’d be lying if I didn’t enjoy seeing the number of visitors, views, and likes to steadily climb month after month. I’m seeing the community grow and I’m seeing progress and I love it. It’s really really nice. WordPress also shows me the number of words I’ve written. I shared a Tweet about it on my Twitter (follow if you want), about I want to share it here too. According to WordPress, I wrote almost 300,000 words in 2017, almost 250,000 words in 2018, and almost 45,000 words in the first two months of 2019. You know, just awesome achievements that I’m pretty proud of. I just wish I could translate that to other aspects of my life. I wish employers cared that I have over 360 Followers on WordPress and 69 Followers on Twitter (as of writing this). I wish cute women were impressed by writing a Blog that has been going on for over two years. I wish I could find this success outside the world of this website.
“But Allen, what about the positive stuff?” I here you say. And honestly my views on the whole thing go back and forth. There are many days where I feel like I’m not progressing far enough, fast enough when looking at other people and what they’ve accomplished, but there are other days where my focus is elsewhere. I try to focus on my own personal growth. I understand that everyone grows at their own rate and it’s important to focus on your own present compared to your own past. Again, this is where a nice stat tracker on WordPress makes me happy. I can see the progress month after month and I can see where I’ve come from. It’s nice. In my real life, it seems like every day seems to blend into the next and altogether it doesn’t add up to much. It can become very frustrating not to see the change and growth you want to see. It seems like such a sluggish pace and I’m afraid that at this pace, I will never be able to accomplish the things I want to. I hope that makes sense. I have a feeling that others out there reading this might know what I’m talking about and have possibly felt the exact same things I’m feeling now. Anyway, that’s how the pendulum swings. Sometimes I feel like I’m not progressing fast enough and that I’m not growing enough and on the other I take a deep breath, and focus on the growth I have made. It’s not a perfect balance at all as you can probably tell from reading through this Weekly Blog, but I hope everyone out there can follow my own advice better than I can. Focus on your own personal growth and try not to compare yourself to others. Everyone grows at a different pace and accomplishes things at a different pace. You can’t rush life no matter how hard you want to. It’s a hard lesson to learn, but I’m trying my best to keep myself from having a full blown panic attack.
Thank you for reading that Weekly Blog. I rambled for a bit there and was a sort of roller coaster ride, but we made it. This is the end. I want to reiterate how much I care for all of you and how much all my readers mean to me. No matter if this is the first thing you’ve read that I have written or you have been following me for years, I appreciate all my readers and all the love they send my way. The views, likes, comments, and shares just overwhelm me at times and truly make my day. If you want to get on that action of sending me love, you can like this Weekly Blog and show some love that way. If you really liked it, feel free to leave a comment down below. You may share your stories of growth or your feelings about it. No matter if you are riding a high or suffering from a low, I’d love to hear about it. Just be considerate and supportive if you are down in the comment section. This is a caring place and I try to make it overall a positive space. If this wasn’t your deal, that’s fine. It doesn’t have to be. I will say that there are over 370 other pieces on the website. So spend some time here and I’m sure you’ll find something to read.
Thank you again for all the support and I hope you have a great week.
-Allen_The_Writer
Header Photo Credit to Tomatosphere
http://tomatosphere.letstalkscience.ca/Resources/library/ArticleId/4830/plant-growth-and-changes.aspx
Allen The Writer 