Remember, It’s Medium, Not High

Why do we push ourselves when getting started with writing?

I signed up for Medium in early June. I was going through a hard time personally and needed something to distract my mind and keep me busy in a constructive and helpful way. I’d been writing creative nonfiction and fiction stories for literary magazines for a couple of years, and now, faced with some challenges, I wanted to channel some of that work on a different platform, so that I could reconstruct my writing hobby and — who knows? — maybe even build a career or a side gig out of it.

If I made a few bucks a month writing on Medium, that’d be icing on the cake. Right? So, I started writing. A lot.

Some of it was necessary: I was/am going through a challenging time, and I needed an outlet for my emotions, in a manner that’s not just diary-style-feelings, but instead, a story from where I come out feeling better, a story that gives me insight into my thoughts and behaviors and how I can change them to become a better version of myself, a story that gives me a chance to solicit input from readers regarding their experiences.

There’s the desire to write and then there’s the desire to push myself to write more — daily, for hours a day, on top of my full-time job. The latter had its roots in my wanting to keep the statistics growing: followers, claps, published stories, comments, private notes, top writers…all the stuff you read about when you google “How do you become a top writer on Medium?”, “How do you make money on Medium?”, “How do you gain followers on Medium?”

One evening, after a long work day, I was standing at the desk, trying to push words out of my mind, into a Word document. I had Medium’s website open in the browser and, as had been the case for the past month, the first thing I looked at on that page was the ‘notifications’ icon: How many new followers? How many responses? Any newly-published stories?

There was no number next to that icon. It was blank. So was I.

I moved away from the desk and looked out the window that opens up to the backyard of my home. The blueberries were starting to ripen. A tiny tuft of clouds sailed along in the mostly-blue June sky. Blue jays were perched on the pear tree.

Why was I doing this writing gig? Was I writing for better stats or was I doing it for putting out better stories, stories that healed and inspired me and lit up the candles of hope and possibilities in my heart, stories that offered me a chance to connect with others?

Was I pushing myself too hard in terms of how quickly I wanted the stats to get ‘better’? Could I let things proceed on their own pace and do my writing, regardless of the numbers? Did I really have to entangle those two aspects?

Was I forcing myself to express every bouquet of thoughts and feelings into a story that’d garner more comments, claps and follows? Was there a better way to express my emotions: maybe write a story, finish it and let it sit on the computer for a few days before uploading it? Would that give the story and me, the time we both need to rest and rejuvenate? Would that allow me to interact with other writers more authentically?

What lay at the root of my desire to get ramped up on Medium asap? It wasn’t about money — I knew that it can take years before a writing gig can get to a point where it can be a substitute for a full-time job. It wasn’t about improving the quality or expanding the niche of articles I wrote, either.

It was the fact that I wanted to get through this initial ramp-up period as quickly as possible, so as to not have to deal with the uncertainty of how things might turn out.

I didn’t want to spend much time in that space where I wasn’t sure if this was all going to be worth it, if it was going to get me to a point where I’d have a stable writing career. I wanted to skip that phase and jump straight to the I’m-an-established-writer-now point. All those stats were just external variables that my discomfort with uncertainty manifested as.

Maybe I ought to write an article about how to not only deal with uncertainty, but also, how to thrive amidst it. Maybe I should start looking for the best publications that have high follower counts, to submit the story to. Ha.

None of this implied that I give up my desire to have a consistent writing schedule and commitment; it was more of a reminder that what I’m doing on Medium was medium priority, not high. It was a reminder that I need to be compassionate towards myself — especially in this hard time — and not push myself beyond self-imposed boundaries.

It was a reminder that you can’t force a cherry blossom to bloom; it will do that only when it’s ready. All you can do is, to quote Ralph Waldo Emerson,

Adapt the pace of nature: her secret is patience

…and while it’s blooming, to quote Mary Oliver,

Pay attention, be astonished and tell about it.