Let’s just give everyone what they are looking for.

A very weird phenomenon happened with me over last few weeks. This year I just committed to write a post everyday. I was doing really well for initial few days and was super proud of my consistently for the first week. I was not really looking for followers, was writing essentially because I really wanted to put my thoughts down. The act of actually writing and postings was giving me the sense of achievement that I was after. Moreover I see myself as a someone who at this stage of life wants to make art of art sake. This was the whole thought behind why I started writing in first place.

Suddenly I started observing something weird. Though I was enjoying the process of writing but became really obsessed with tracking stats. When there was no views of my post that sort of damping my spirits.

I knew my pursuit of art for art sake is legit and these stats are mere distractions but was the disappointment was also real.

To decipher the reason behind it I encountered the question of why I need to share my work with the world? If I am creating art for its own sake why does it matter that I have to share it with someone. If I am not looking for approval and my art is complete in itself why does it matters of someone sees it or not?

While I was grappling with this internal quest, my marketing self started looking for hacks on the side. I found follow for follow option. They are in plenty on Medium and actually works. Worked for me too, and with in 24 hours I started getting followers. They I started feeling even bad about myself because I had not only betrayed my beliefs but also now the people who were following me were those who were not even interested in my content. What was worse, this broke my writing streak completely, now I was rather busy in responding to follow on follow comments than actually writing, the sole why I started in first place.

Then something amazing happened, few of these folks who followed me actually started responding to my content, I can’t tell you the happiness you get when you see that someone has made an actual effort to read what you have written and respond to it.

It also gave the resolution to my internal conflict too. As I said I was not looking for approval for my content. I guess I am just looking for deeper conversations with like minded people and there writing are just a pretext of same. I am sending out these invites out in the world for people to respond to in case they are looking for someone similar. Even if they don’t respond to me it doesn’t matter because a part of that conversation I already had with myself while writing about it.

This whole event reminded me of something which Jim Carrey said “ I wish everyone in their life should get what they are looking, because then they will be able to see this is not that important and may be start focusing on what is important in life.”

If you are looking for a follow back, I will do so. I ask you to write what your heart desires not what might give you more followers because even AI can do that 😉

Let’s just give everyone what they are looking for by Magicthreadworks