I’ve had my blog since the end of 2015. In my Freshmen year of college, in 2015, I was telling an old friend of mine (who I met in high school) that I want to have a platform where I can share my poetry with more people. She told me to start a blog—she told me about WordPress; create an account and start posting on there.
Fear is a funny thing. Soon after she had told me that, I started the blog, got accustomed to WordPress, and foresaw its potential. A few years after starting the blog, an old friend I hadn’t seen since middle school (we stayed in touch thanks to social media) told me to buy the website domain. What?
In conversation, I had told him that I want to do more with my blog—I want this website to be the face of Sir Charles, the a writer. Back then, my website was “sircharlesthepoet. WordPress. com”. In university, friends and strangers alike would call me “Wordpress” because I was notorious for randomly walking up to students on campus to ask them to read my poetry at “blah blah blah”WORDPRESS”blah blah” (I’m sure that’s what I sounded like). I even had flyers advertising my blog all over the campus bulletin boards. You couldn’t escape ”Wordpress“. In our conversation, my friend told me it’d be more professional and appealing if my website didn’t have “.wordpress” stuck right in the middle of it. But, bro, I wasn’t ready to pay that yearly fee. I was afraid.
(“Afraid of what, Charles?” Afraid of it not working out and me realizing that I wasted my money chasing that dream). Afraid of all the work I will have to do because I committed to this, and because I put my money where my mouth and talent is.
I told him I would take some time to think about it—which, in The Wimpy-Coward Encyclopedia, Chapter 2, Section 7, Line 5, is an excuse that is especially reserved as an alternative to saying, “NO! (because I am SCARED)”. He was persistent; every time that we talked, he would bring it up. I wasn’t ready to face myself and my bullshit—so, anyways, I stopped talking to that guy 🤷🏾♂️.
Fast forward to about 3 years later—it is nearing the end of 2022. I’m in a motel in Colorado; I left home (NYC) behind about a year ago; I’ve been told over and over again that my writing has potential. I want to focus on making my writing a stream of income in the near future. I accepted that I will never feel settled with a different style of living. While scrolling through blog posts, I came across a post about writers making money via freelance work. That is not what I want to do but I guess it is what I want to do in a way, right? To me, freelance work is having to always go look for work in order to pay the bills. That’s not exactly how I pictured my career in writing to be. But I don’t know enough, so I am open to it. I commented on the post, explaining that I want my writing to support my living. I want a job where I write. I talked about my doubts regarding freelance work, but I am willing to try it if I have to. But, ultimately, what I want is to make money off of my blog, and get paid for pieces I inspired and created myself.
The person who made the post replied. At some point in our conversation, she said if that is your goal, then why have you not bought the domain and monetized your blog (Sounds familiar?…yup)? I hit her back with a bunch of reasons as to why not—reasons that seemed pretty legit to me. Excuses. Fears. The money! What if I fail? These are legit reasons, right? Sure. Kinda. She went straight to it and told me I was full of it. Filled with excuses. She said I could take that step with the blog and end up failing, or I could take that step with the blog and surpass all the success that I’ve ever imagined. But either outcome would be better than spending another 7 years, or the incoming forever, giving myself excuses. Plus, I was young. I can always try again or adjust my path.
As I was reading her response—her telling me about myself—I remembered a quote that I had saved on my phone. A quote that I once promised myself to always abide by:
“it was far easier to leap at what you wanted, and only beg answers and forgiveness if you slipped.”
The stubborn voice in me was still looking for another excuse to retaliate with. Before finding one, I asked myself how much longer will it take until the same excuses for the passed 7 years get redundant? Where would I be now if I had taken my middle school friend’s advice a few years ago and bought the domain? The new year was around the corner. I told myself that, as a New Year present to myself for 2023, I would buy the domain.
2023 came, and I did just that. I signed up for a WordPress plan that would lead me to as close to my goals with this blog as possible. I spent the entire sign-up process hesitating while eagerly clicking buttons to see what is next. It was thrilling.
Today makes it about 4 months since I had purchased my domain, but I don’t even remember how much it had cost me. Next year and the following years, my yearly plan will get renewed and I will be taken aback for a second as I look at the unexpected and unfamiliar charge on my credit card statement because, again, it was never about the money. It was never about the price. It was about the fear. It was the fear that my dream was too big, so it’s stupid. It’s the fear that I could actually become successful at everything I ever dreamed of as well as becoming everything that no one, not even myself, foresaw me accomplishing. It was the fear that if I made that step then I know I will never let myself turn back. It was the fear that I had to commit. So this is serious. This is it.
Sircharlesthepoet.com (as you can see, this plan permitted me to remove the “.Wordpress” from my domain name, hehe).
That website now takes up a whole lot of real estate in my mind. I can’t wait for it to start paying rent.
“If two or more people who don’t know absolutely anything about each other say the EXACT SAME thing about you. It’s probably true, and you should definitely listen.”
“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.”
“You have to embrace that sailing means that you can’t control the elements and that there will be good days and bad days and that, whatever comes, you will deal with it because your goal is to eventually get to the other side. You will not be able to control exactly how you get across. that’s the game you’ve decided to be in. If your goal is to make it easier and simpler, then don’t get in the boat.” – Andrew Stanton, Creativity, Inc.
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