The possibility of starting this website took a long time to show up. Once I started thinking about it, it took me a while to decide to do it and a few more months to build up the courage to get started.

I thought of all the pros and cons for a long time. In the end, I didn't see any negatives sides, only the cost of time and money. On the other hand, I could see a lot of positive outcomes. But the truth is that by talking to some people about it, I realized that none had the same expectations as me.

I noticed that some of them were immediately thinking about the financial side, probably because I started the whole thing a few months after I quit my job. When they heard about blogging, they soon said it would be hard to make money from it, because no one is more interested in blogging today. So, I decided to write the reasons that led me to do it.

Discipline

The first reason is discipline, for sure. I like to include activities into my routine that makes me practice the habit of doing things that are not necessarily pleasurable but are worthwhile.

Most of the things we need to do every day are not pleasurable, but we do to do it or pay the price. If we take the discipline to regularly eat well, exercise, learn something new, sleep well, have fun, save money, talk to people we care about, our lives would be much better. It will be easier to deal with negatives and unexpected events also.

And if something requires discipline, it is because the result is never right away. You may feel good after an exercise session, but actual results will only appear if you stick with the habit for a long time.

Thus, I believe I have difficulty maintaining good habits, but I make a reasonable effort to keep them. So, I'm creating a website that requires me to write regularly and that I have no idea what will result. It can be an excellent exercise to know if I'm getting the discipline I think is necessary to have a stable life.

Meet people

I came to this conclusion by talking to a friend I made recently but has become a significant person to me. I met him in an unusual situation, among dozens of other people addressing an event. We identified several issues we both were interested in, and we quickly build a friendly bond.

In addition to being proof that friendships arise from the most unexpected situations, he was telling me how exposing himself online generates relationships he didn't expect. It may seem obvious to you, but it wasn't to me.

Here I will put much of what I think, so it is easy to imagine that I will attract people who can identify with this way of thinking. I must also deepen some relations that I already have, but which are still distant. If I take a good friend out of all this, all the effort will be worth it.

Learn to put me out there

I always avoided to expose myself on social media and had a great deal of criticism about the way most people did it. I have already written here about caring about the opinions of others and addressed the subject a bit.

I even wrote a little on LinkedIn and the internal social network of my previous work. It was a challenging exercise, and I came up with a goal that it would only be ten posts. As an experiment, I would not go with it after that point. It was an excuse for myself, but at least I manage to build the courage to write, though for a little while.

I confess that I still don't quite understand why I'm so afraid to expose myself — both my image and opinions. I find the world too complicated and have difficulty grasping the many possibilities you can take from my message. I don't feel comfortable when people understand something very different from what I wanted to explain.

However, I have been doing more things that I was afraid of doing it in, and that is why I want to make a habit of writing here. If I'm worried or even scared, maybe it's a good reason to do it. It will be at least interesting to have the opportunity to reread what I write here in a few years.

Learn to write

If I'm afraid of how people will understand what I write, maybe the best way is to practice writing as clearly as possible. Right? And do I have enough content in my head to write at least once a week?

That is why writing with discipline can help me both ways. Everyone can read what I'm publishing here. It will make me increasingly improve the way I write a text. It will help me understand my style, my weaknesses. I only need to do it consciously and hear the critics.

On the other hand, it will help me explore my creativity. What's the use of writing in the right way if what I write I don't even find interesting myself? Approaching topics that concern me in different ways and making it sound interesting to read seems to be an excellent skill.

Maybe I will want to work with something that requires good writing in the future. There are a lot of people working with that out there. I have the chance to explain my ideas, expose the quality of my texts, getting better and better, and I can still evaluate it as a work option in the future. It seems like a great reason to have a blog, even if I'm the only person reading it.

Learn to write in English

If you are reading this text in Portuguese, I hope you have noticed the button below that offers you the option to read also in English. Otherwise, the website design is not as good as it should be. If you are in the English version, you may have seen some typos you might not have expected. Maybe the structure might be a little bit odd, as well. I Don't know. It is a challenge for me.

Anyway, learning to write in my language, Portuguese, is already challenging to master. Now, doing the same thing in English is no joke, I tell you. And if I'm afraid of exposing myself in Portuguese, imagine in English, where mistakes will be more frequent.

One of the things that block the learning of any new language is the fear of making mistakes. It seems that we think we should only start using it when it is perfect. Writing in English helps me in two ways then. Dealing with this and being judged for it and making progress in the language.

Of course, writing in English can help me reach more people by communicating with my non-Portuguese speaking friends. However, for now, I suspect how clear my message can be. Here it comes some fear knocking on the door again.

Explore my thoughts

Have you ever imagined that most of the time, we are repeating things we don't know the reason we believe in it? Or just spreading ideas from other people we heard out there, but we think they are ours?

I've done this a lot. Even in my last year of work, it seemed like I had become a phrase-repeat machine. The job seemed to demand, and I deliver what appeared to be required. To convince other people of anything, I had to validate the idea using a quote from somebody else. It was not me who said it, but Elon Musk! Tiresome, at the very least.

Maintaining the blog helps me create something that comes from my thinking. If only a little of the content. I'm not bringing explanations about the world, offering advice on how people should deal with their lives or anything like that. I have another site that I do a lot of it, but here I try to tell how I feel, what I think and why I make some decisions.

I believe that this makes me solidify my opinions and understand what my personal view is. I also open myself to being criticized and maybe change my thoughts about something. If this happens once a year, it will be worth it, won't it?

Let it go

One thing I only realized after I started writing is how easy it is to stop thinking about a subject after you have written about it. Do you know that idea that keeps hammering our heads during the day or sometimes even at bedtime? I'm talking about them.

I realized that if I go to bed and I am overthinking about something I would like to do, unraveling a theme, or whatever it is, an excellent technique to solve it is writing about it. I get up and see how much time I want to spend on it. If I have enough, I write everything that comes to mind. If I want to sleep early, I write the topics and give as little detailed as possible. It's enough to leave me alone, and if I feel like it, I can explore the subject later.

I realized that when I kept thinking and rethinking about a subject in my head, sometimes it would come up in the middle of a conversation for no apparent reason. If, in addition to writing, I publish my opinion, it seems a way to move on. You may not identify with this, but I confess that it is an excellent exercise for me.

Another thing that seemed to help, but I'm still not sure if it's because I wrote about it, is that I try to convince people of what I think less then I was used to it. If anyone says something that I don't agree, I'm more interested in listening than throwing my ideas on the table. It is difficult, but it seems that I have improved on that.

Show my skills

I said I want to learn to put me out there, right? By doing so, I can build an online profile that is closer to who I am. Of course, it will be photographs taken at specific times, but they give some precise information.

I am currently evaluating various possibilities of how my future is going to be. Maintaining such a blog, where I put a few opinions, my routine, the way I make decisions, will help me to create a profile that can open doors to professional opportunities.

The other side is that you can also close doors that don't seem appropriate for me. Finding out that a relationship had no chance of working after already started is not a good thing. That is why having this online personality seems like the right way to make the complexities that go through my mind more evident.

Build and maintain a website

I did everything you see here from scratch. I do not use WordPress, Wix, Square, or other content management systems to manage this site. Not because these tools are inadequate, but my goal is more significant than just having a space to write. Nevertheless, I know how to use these tools.

Having the ability to build a website more freely and understanding what it takes to keep everything going can help me in many other endeavors. Maybe I can make websites in the future.

In addition to the building part, I try to understand the details necessary to maintain a good quality website. How can it be faster, how can it be found by people easily, what visual details are most pleasing? It was no coincidence that I decided not to use JavaScript and have the mobile version buttons displayed at the bottom.

I also wrote this text title in a way that I don't usually do it. Yet, I know that people have a keen interest in lists. I decided to take the risk and learn a little from the situation.

And above all, it can become a source of income

It would be a lie for me not to consider the fact that this site may generate some income in the future. I can't know how much revenue will be directly related to the site. However, I know that by exploring all the other benefits I have told you for enough time, people will be visiting this website. Why not turn this into an income? I also have bills to pay!