Grieving My First Viral Article

I learned a valuable lesson from my first viral story

I have the viral blues.

I just noticed that my story, “We’re All One Step Away From Insanity,” about Will Smith had back-to-back days with 1K views.

I should be ecstatic, right? I have an article with 2.3K views and 663 reads … so why then do I have the viral blues?

It’s because I forget to include my referral link at the end of the story, and I can’t capitalize on the viral tidal wave my article has generated.

I feel like Homer Simpson … Doh!

So I’m sharing my viral blues with a few of my Medium friends: Sandy Maximus|Sreese| Deborah Camp|J.R. Spiers| Taylor Davidson|and Klara Jane Holloway… and I’m not tagging you just to get you to read my story.

I’m sharing my sorrow with you + others and getting my loss off my chest.

Reflecting on my loss

I just ate two brownies my wife made with a glass of milk and asked my son if he had any leftover chocolate from the chocolate eggs in his Easter basket.

He ate ’em all.

So it’s just me and my feelings, and we all have to go through our emotions with a loss, and so I have to mourn and let these feelings pass through me.

That’s the thing about writing on Medium… I love that we get paid for our creative work, but now I’m mourning the monetary loss to my viral article.

I know it’s only a $2.27 bonus per month for a referral bonus, but I feel I should be focusing on the impact my article could be having on 669 readers.

That’s close to 1K people who read my article over a two-day period.

And I should feel happy people are reading about how close we all are to losing it like Will Smith did when he slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars.

That’s what I should be feeling … but I’m not. I feel what I feel when I write a story, and then I move on to the next shiny thought I have for a new story.

And now I’m feeling bummed, so I’m grieving.

The cycle of grief

I’m going through Elisabeth Kubler Ross’s five stages of grief:

I feel angry for leaving my referral link out at the end of my story. I know I can’t go back, click edit and add it to my story to catch the end of the viral wave to my story because once it's posted to the internet it won’t update.

(FYI: In case you didn’t know, you can click those three dots at the top of your story, choose edit, change your title, and it will update within Medium. I’ve done this many times with a bad headline after I see low stats on a story.)

All of that was to say I’m skipping over the bargaining stage of grieving to feeling disappointment … I’m bummed I didn’t use a catchy referral to get three or four people to be Medium members through my referral link.

There I got it out … thanks to my pals I tagged for listening.

So that’s the point of this story … work through the disappointment in your losses, even tiny ones like the loss of $5 or$10 monthly referral commissions.

Do you need to grieve?

Maybe, you have something bigger to grieve and to let go to reach that elusive state of acceptance with some aspect in your life.

That’s why I’m sharing a poem I read in a story by The Sober Vegan Yogi to help you reflect on that *thing* that you may need to let go of in your life.

If this poem helps you in any way, I’ll feel better about my small loss… and you know to leave a link to stories that may receive lots of external views.

Here’s the poem:

She Let Go by Reverend Safire Rose

She let go.

Without a thought or a word, she let go.

She let go of fear. She let go of the judgments. She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head. She let go of the committee of indecision within her. She let go of all the ‘right’ reasons. Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go.

She didn’t ask anyone for advice. She didn’t read a book on how to let go… She didn’t search the scriptures.

She just let go. She let go of all of the memories that held her back. She let go of all of the anxiety that kept her from moving forward. She let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right.

She didn’t promise to let go. She didn’t journal about it. She didn’t write the projected date in her day-timer. She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper. She didn’t check the weather report or read her daily horoscope.

She just let go. She didn’t analyze whether she should let go. She didn’t call her friends to discuss the matter. She didn’t do a five-step Spiritual Mind Treatment. She didn’t call the prayer line. She didn’t utter one word. She just let go.

No one was around when it happened. There was no applause or congratulations. No one thanked her or praised her. No one noticed a thing.

Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go. There was no effort. There was no struggle. It wasn’t good and it wasn’t bad. It was what it was, and it is just that. In the space of letting go, she let it all be. A small smile came over her face. A light breeze blew through her. And the sun and the moon shone forevermore.

Thanks for reading my story.

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