How I joined Medium
A choice between the couch or a new community
4 months ago I completed my first year as a university undergraduate. 4 months ago, I had no idea what I was going to do in my life. I was granted an unprecedented amount of freedom daily in choosing what to do.
I could finish that TV Show that everyone’s raving about… or the one that I accidentally clicked play on, now forever staring back at me longingly, with the words Continue Watching beckoning me over, tempting me to forget about my assignments and complete it instead. I could finally start that video game that I bought just as school began last year. Yeah, that one — the one that looked like a chill, relaxing time, which I now know is probably going to suck my life away for around 3 of the 4 months I had off.
Confined for the most part between home and the job I had landed because let’s face it; if you were a broke university student, you’re gonna wanna pick up some work for cash, and with this newfound freedom, I had so much time and so much I could do. Pandemic things, am I right?
Well, it soon dawned on me that between my daily obligations and the “chance” to work for every spare hour I could, to earn as much money as I could, by the time I got home, I was exhausted. I couldn’t bear to do much else. Repeat this 5/6 times a week and you have yourself a full-time working student who is supposed to take a break according to every single lecturer I had during my final week of teaching in 2021.
Mentally, this repetitiveness took a toll on me and physically too. At times, my routine would simply be to wake up, work, sleep and repeat. I knew I had to make time for myself, and I did just that, managing to snag a couple days a week off — to finally relax after 2 years of intense education. To tell you I needed it would be an understatement.
Herein lies a choice. A choice to succumb to the temptations of the couch or chase my passion. My passion is to not even write but to share my thoughts and have people value them and give feedback. It’s just that, with my insecurities building up an impenetrable wall that marks my refusal to show my face to the world, I chose this. To write. And not to toot my own horn, but I think I’m pretty good at it.
In October, I bit the bullet and joined Instagram (again) under a public profile. A persona. I became a scribe for soccer. Everything and anything related to it I wanted to write about I did. And apparently, people loved it? Soon, connections were made with lovely people from around the world. The followers started coming and I used that drive to write more. Not only more in quantity, but quality too. I refined my writing, trying to master the art of keeping my thoughts in between 2200 characters. Damn you Instagram for putting in that character limit!
But I knew I had much more to say. Absolutely nobody I met in my life was ever one-dimensional. Not even myself. So I wanted to provide commentary for everything and anything around me. But I couldn’t. I had already pushed myself into a niche and there was no way to turn back. But how about my personal account? I could post on that? I thought about it but came to the conclusion that I doubt many of my friends and family would be invested in a 300-word essay about how the intricacies of the WM formation revolutionised football tactics, so why would they be invested in all my other opinions and thoughts.
Now regularly running out of characters for a caption really began to piss me off. I mean, REALLY began to piss me off. A post on a topic that I could talk about for yonks was shortened merely to a post that barely scratched the surface. So I began searching, for another way to share my thoughts. Not only on football but on the other things happening in my life… or whatever I wanted to talk about that day. One where no one and I mean absolutely no one knew who I was. A place where I was in full anonymity.. of sorts.
Then I remembered that one app I have installed on my phone that I never use. No. Not Twitter. But Medium. Battling with my inner self-doubt, my passion for writing won over and I’ve been hooked ever since. Without much to do and you know, a global pandemic?
I decided f*ck it!
Since it’s so easy, I’ll start a blog of my own to calm my ever so egotistical personality and my apparent need for little dopamine hits in the form of “likes” or engagement.
And that’s how I became a full-time university student, part-time worrier and quarter-time blogger on Medium.
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Much appreciated,
