Pretty soon I’ll be coming up to the 10-year anniversary mark since I began writing for this site, TheTwelfthStep.com. Presently, I’ve written well over 2000 original articles for it, but I find myself now at a crossroads with it wondering if I really want to keep it going.
One thing I have the ability with when it comes to this blog, is to see how many are actually reading it daily. It has a tool built into it behind the scenes on WordPress that shows me the level of traffic hitting my site each day, including where that traffic originates from and any specific terms searched for within it. For the longest time I was averaging between 50 and 100 readers a day, which in all honesty I was thankful for. I know that those numbers are pretty minuscule when it comes to social media presence, but I was thankful for each of my daily readers nonetheless. I also learned to not care about having more of an Internet presence because I enjoyed writing about my life and sharing my experiences transparently with the rest of the world.
When I got on Facebook and Twitter years ago, I found they were a great way to increase my site’s traffic by reposting links to each of my blog entries. I became thankful for every time a reader who reached out publicly or behind the scenes to tell me how much my words affected them. Unfortunately, my site’s traffic and visibility on Facebook and Twitter have been reduced to a mere handful of people checking it out now on a daily basis, mainly due to social media changing their formulas for what they feel deserves to show up everyone’s individual’s newsfeeds. Sadly, Facebook’s and Twitter’s formulas don’t find what I write to be important enough for the world to see anymore, so when I repost my excerpts on either, they get completely suppressed now. Most of my friends have told me they never see my articles showing up on their timelines anymore. So, in all reality, I am simply writing for myself these days, making this blog mainly an online journal or diary of sorts and nothing more. It’s why I find I am questioning my motive lately whether I want to keep this going. Because I don’t find that I am feeling fed anymore by all the work I keep putting into it and that’s something I’m not taking lightly.
To keep this blog going actually costs me about $700 a year and takes about 6 to 7 hours of my time every week. In the grand scheme of things that’s not much of a commitment either financially or with my time, but for me, it does add a lot of stress. While I originally began this blog as a cathartic way to work through my own inner demons of my life, I had always hoped it would grow in size and gain better readership along the way. It hasn’t and in fact is now losing most of my original readership, all because of what social media considers important these days. Writing about self-healing, life experiences, and the spiritual journey I’ve been on, which is quite unique in of itself, seems like it’s not that important as far as where the rest of the world is concerned.
While I haven’t made a final decision yet whether to close this site down or continue keeping it up and running, me writing this very article is simply putting it out there to the Universe, or God if you may, asking for some sort of sign whether I’m meant to keep doing this. Look, I love writing, truly I do, but I feel I’ve exhausted most of my life’s experiences in here and have been re-sharing things in recent years that I know I’ve already shared before in some fashion. It almost feels as if I’m just repeating and rehashing the same material now again and again, simply for the sake of producing yet another article. I find this isn’t being productive anymore for my spiritual journey and I am praying for guidance from God surrounding this.
I don’t know if this article will even be read by more than a dozen people or less, but if somehow even one person responds to me and asks to keep it going because it’s helped their life somehow, then I’m going to take that as a sign from God to not give up. But if no one responds to these very words I write from my fragile heart, then I plan to take it as a sign it may just be time to call it a day and shut this site down, once and for all. It’s in Your court God now. I leave this with You…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
I see you. ♥️
Breathe, and break if needed, then let your heart bring you to what’s next.
Thank you Kate. ❤️❤️❤️
Keep praying on it. It’s not up to us mere mortals. There are more options than the 2 you think you have (stop or keep going).
I will and thank you brother! ❤️🙏
I think Jonathan has it right, maybe it evolves into something else, like making tshirts from ponient sayings in the blog and selling them to make money. Pray, pray, pray.
Deb, you made me smile with this. Not sure if I’d ever do something like that but smiles at it nonetheless. I guess I still have hope that someone has silently been reading alone for a long time and one day will talk to me and offer me a job in writing somewhere or somehow. ❤️
If it isn’t bringing you joy, don’t do it! Seekers find teachers and you are a great example of working the program , no matter where you are Andrew 😘.
Thank you Kelly…. ❤️❤️❤️
Stop posting and see what happens, use that data to inform your next steps, it doesn’t behave to be a switch on/off forever. Maybe consider trying to do less posts? It seems to me this is an outlet/habit/ritual for you to post and it helps you externalize. I rarely read blogs myself.
Good luck whatever you decide!
It was definitely meant to be that outlet for me but lately I feels often the opposite. So yes something to ponder.
This suggestion sounds monumental, and I wouldn’t even know where to begin, but you seemed to enjoy talking to your fraternity again! Maybe some high schools would have you come and speak about addiction. That age is a great place to begin nowadays. Plus you’d get to travel!
That is my dream to travel and share my story as a living and I have tried many times to bring that to fruition but it continues to get thwarted so it leads me to believe it’s in Gods timing. 🙏❤️
I guess the decision is before you. Time can give us insight on what that decision will be. Meditation is a good tool. When I pray, I talk to my Higher power. When I meditate, I listen. I hope you keep the site going. I don’t look at it often enough, I confess. The answer is there. Listen!
Thank you as always, always grateful for your responses and look forward to them! ❤️🙏