It’s funny how sometimes our biggest faults are invisible to us. When I first heard from a girlfriend that I didn’t express enough appreciation for her, I thought she was overly sensitive. When just about every girlfriend since her said the same thing, I realized it was indeed a fault.
I’m single now, but there’s no shortage of people I deeply appreciate in my life who probably don’t feel the full weight of that appreciation. Today I was featured in Time Magazine as one of their top 25 bloggers in 2013, which prompted me to realize that maybe readers like you don’t fully understand how much you’re appreciated.
Thank You For Reading
I had no idea that anyone would read my blog when I started it. It began as a record of my third, and ultimately successful, attempt to get on the polyphasic sleep schedule.When I quit the schedule after a few months, I would have stopped blogging if it weren’t for the few dozen people who had found my blog. I was so grateful that they cared about what I was writing that I started retelling some of my crazier adventures from times past. Those hit bigger sites, and soon I had a thousand readers.Eventually, as my blog continued to grow, I ran out of crazy old stories, and had to write about less concrete things like habits and thoughts. That made me more vulnerable than I was comfortable being, but again my readers drove me on.So even if you’ve been silently reading, just being there has had a big impact on my life. I never forget that every incremental reader on my stats is a real person who has entrusted me with a tiny bit of their time. In a world with millions of smart people writing nearly infinite things to read, that bit of time you give me means the world to me. Thank you.
Thank You For Commenting
I’ve been blogging for over eight years now and have read nearly every single comment posted on my site, which speaks to how highly I value those comments.I’ve been corrected through comments, encouraged through comments, and been made to understand how my work impacts others through comments.This blog isn’t just a reflection of my life; it’s intertwined with it. Usually changes in my life prompt blog posts, but comments from blog posts have also changed who I am. Receiving constant feedback on my ideas has challenged and encouraged me to become a better writer and a better person. Thank you.
Thank You For Being part of my Community
I didn’t start SETT for the money or because of market research. I started it because I started meeting people who read my blog. As I met these people, I was consistently left thinking: someone that awesome reads my blog?Upon meeting a string of really impressive readers, I realized that my blog wasn’t just a collection of essays from me, but rather a community waiting to exist. It was the moment where I realized that the visible tip of the iceberg wasn’t the whole iceberg.Since switching to SETT and seeing the community section flourish, I’ve really come to know members of my community. One of my most touching memories of this past year was when I had a small reader meetup and all of the readers knew each other from the community section. A couple had even exchanged messages with each other.Being a part of a community like the one here at my site has made me incredibly proud. Every week there’s at least one thread there where people really help each other and connect, and I’m just happy to be associated with that.Over the past few years, SETT has become my life. It’s given me purpose, taught me tons, and is on the verge of becoming a career and business. None of this would have happened if it weren’t for members of my community. Thank you.
Thank You For Everything Else
It’s hard to enumerate all of the ways in which I’ve been impacted by the readers of this blog. You’ve helped me make a living by buying my books, jump-started SETT by being the first to create blogs here, and helped grow my blog by sharing my posts.My blog has been one of the very best parts of my life for the past eight years, and none of that is because I have a stack of essays I’ve written. It’s all because people like you have read my writing, replied to it, and become part of the community here. From the bottom of my heart: thank you.
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