I have not signed into or written on my blog for months. Honestly, I found myself paralyzed by the blog awards. It may seem silly, but what I found flattering and uplifting, I simultaneously allowed to confine and enslave me.
Not uncommon in my life, once other things clamoring for my attention filled my time, I found it easy to neglect blogging. What had so recently been a joy to engage in, was now a weight. Though I wanted to make time for it, I likewise wanted to avoid it. The months went by and before I knew what had happened, blogging was but an afterthought, something I would read and respond to rather than a personal venture of my own. How did the kindness of an award turn into a burden?
When I received my first award, I was touched that someone might think enough of what I had shared of myself to affirm me. I followed the award reqs and I felt encouraged as was intended. Then, as is almost routine among bloggers because everyone is about supporting other bloggers in their craft, more awards continued to come. I appreciated the acknowledgement. Wanting to honor those who had honored me by following through with what was expected in the awards, I found my strong sense of fulfilling my obligations shackling me and I couldn't break free.
The blogging community is about empowering others to write by providing tools and incentives to do just that. The awards are one of those vehicles by which we can be a support staff to each other. In no way do I want to impugn the giving of blogging awards. Rather it was my response I hope to discourage in others. I let self-imposed expectations inhibit me from doing something through which I found satisfaction. I put up my own unnecessary road blocks. Initially getting and responding to the awards was fun for me, but soon it became a trap for me. I felt this cloud hanging over me. I needed to let it rain my responses, I thought, before I could write anything else. Pretty soon I didn't want to write anymore.
I tripped myself up by not letting go of something I didn't need to hold onto. It is a real lesson for me personally in more than just blogging. I like to say, "Get over yourself. Get out of your own way," and here I was very much in my own way, not knowing how to move.
I just have to admit that fulfilling the requirements of the awards, as fun as they are, has got to be a secondary concern for me or award flu might set in again. Better to get over myself and get on my way to delighting in living.
