Let’s put your imagination to work for a moment.
Seriously — just do it. Close your eyes and…
Are you seriously rolling those eyes at me? Just do it — I’m a teacher. Let’s spark some creativity here folks.
Okay. Anyways — as I was saying.
Close your eyes and imagine your newest obsession. A TV show, a song, a boy (do tell!).. all of those things can dominate your attention just like well, blogging can.
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A while ago, Tina from Faith, Fitness, Fun wrote a guest post for me about the “blogging vortex” and how to stay out of the black hole. A few readers asked me what my take was on this — and… surprise! Four months later, I have an answer for you.
With blogging, it’s easy to get obsessed. I say this because, well.. I am obsessed. I am in love and passionate about blogging and everything it entails. What I don’t do is let blogging overtake my life.
When I first started blogging, I never realized how time consuming it would be. Write blog post. Comment on other’s blogs. Comment on other’s comments on your blog. Answer e-mails. Utilize social media (love my twitter pals!)… you get the picture.
(source) The only thing wrong with all of that? I’m in the blog bubble. Nowhere in any of this am I interacting in real life with people that I can touch and smile with. Don’t take offense, internet friends, but some days a girl’s gotta have a deep belly throated laugh with her best friend about being pelted with hardcore rain while riding a roller coaster.
I feel like with blogging I go through phases. I get really excited, write about 203923 posts a day, comment on millions of others’ posts, and am totally in love with the community that is blogging.
Other times, I ask myself if blogging is really good for me (answer: YES!). I’m naturally a homebody. I have friends, but I don’t need to talk to them every day to feel secure in my relationships. Naturally, writing down my thoughts comes easily to me, and I enjoy all of the friendships I have created as a result of blogging. But being a homebody (but not an introvert — interesting, eh?), I wonder if I alienate myself even more by creating an online sanctuary where I can write and be creative.
Of course, that’s my thinking about 0.002% of the time — and no, I have no intentions of not blogging anymore, or even decreasing the amount of posts I have been writing. I love it too much and am way too passionate about blogging to even consider anything so drastic.
What I’m talking about it not living inside of the blog bubble.
The blog bubble is safe. It’s cushy. It’s comfortable. How do I avoid it?
I think the biggest way I avoid the blog bubble is to limit the time every day I spend on blogs. If I allowed myself, I could sit on my computer every day all day blog surfing like it was my job (I guess in a way it kind of is?). I could create a dozen new friendships and relationships with other bloggers. I could plop my behind down at the kitchen table (my office) without saying one word to anyone else all day.
Don’t lie — you could too.
But I don’t do that. I limit the time I spend reading blogs each day. Especially now that I am on summer break, I could easily get carried away. However, I only read blogs when I’m eating breakfast, (sometimes) lunch, and after all my chores are done after dinner. During this time, I also prep/write my blog posts for the day (or days to come if I’m planning ahead) — I would say each day I spend about 3-4 hours a day doing blog and/or blog related work.
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When I first started blogging, I would get really anal about posting — if a post wasn’t up at X time every day, I would probably lose about 2039209 readers — because let’s face it, everyone is paying attention to the exact second that I post something new (insert sarcasm here). I don’t remember who said this, but I know one of you did in regards to blogging:
“Blog what you live, don’t live to blog”
That piece of advice has resonated with me over and over again over the last year or so of my life.
While the blog world is an amazing place, I still have people and responsibilities in my every day, ordinary, somewhat boring life. Responsibilities that cannot be ignored. People who love me and want to spend time with me (and I want to spend time with!).
Everything in life is about balance. I have to balance my blog bubble in one hand with the real world bubble in the other.
Question: How do you balance your blog bubble?
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