Have fun

Sometimes I imagine myself as an artist, drawing pictures, writing poems, or recording songs. I have many ideas in my head. But the problem is - once I open my laptop or notebook and see a blank page, I have no idea where to start.

That's exactly how I felt last week. I saw many notes in my app, and some of them seemed good enough. So I decided to start a blog. It sounded fun and a bit silly at the same time. So, I didn’t spend much time thinking about it. I chose a blog platform, set it up, picked a theme, and adjusted it to my needs. I enjoyed thinking about it and planning of getting there.

I was so excited that day - I didn’t stop there. I wrote the first blog post in one go, did a quick typo check, and clicked publish. It felt great. A bit childlike. There were no expectations - I just did it for fun.

As time passed, I started feeling internal pressure. I didn’t know where it was coming from, but it was something about having a blog and not writing to it. Even though I had many ideas, I got stuck when trying to write them down. It started feeling like a “work” instead of “fun.” After a few painful days, I decided to close all tabs reminding me of writing and move on with life.

A few days later, reflecting on this, I noticed a few problems.

The first one - I began treating it like work instead of something fun. I didn’t plan to become serious about it; it just happened. If you look at how children explore the world, you’ll see that every action they take is out of curiosity. They think, “What will happen if I do this or that?” They continue if they like it or stop if it hurts. But as soon as you tell them, “Do it this way, not that way,” there's a risk they’ll lose interest. There's no craft, no curiosity, no discovery. It becomes monotonous, following given instructions.

The second problem - blank page syndrome. As soon as I opened the app to write a draft post, I got stuck looking at the blank screen. I had millions of ideas, smart quotes, and phrases. I knew how to turn boring statistics into entertaining stories. I do this all the time when reading or listening to podcasts. I write down my interpretations of ideas and conclusions into note app. But when it came to writing specifically for a blog, as soon as I opened the app - I got stuck.

I started treating it as something “serious.” It’s on the internet; people can read and judge. So, it should be perfect from the first go. It kills creativity. I avoided doing silly things, write whatever comes to my mind and aimed for everything to be polished and professional. It kills the natural process of discovery and progress. It stops being fun.

So, my first approach to fight these feelings and overcome this “blank page” situation - I decided to open the app and write everything I felt. And here we are. Another blog post. I overcame the problem. I did whatever comes to my mind. I enjoyed the process. I had fun.

Do stupid things.

Have fun.