"When you are in a hole, stop digging" (Advice I probably should have heeded when writing this post)

So exams are over again and I shall allow myself to write another post. One might be forgiven for thinking that the days leading up to and including exam time would be a time of increased activity for my blog, you know given its name and everything. In fact I was wondering that to and I have come up with a theory. While the procrastinator knows that they are procrastinating they are looking for a distraction. I have the feeling that I would not be able to procrastinate in the form of blogging without significant feelings of guilt. That is not to say that I did not procrastinate during the period or that I did not feel guilty for doing it because I did both to an almost unimaginable level (guilt is a fantastic motivator by the way).

The thing is the name of my blog is kinda a sad reminder of the fact that my procrastinating can actually be a big problem which makes me almost want to change it. Only almost though, in reality I like the name too much to change it but the temptation remains.

Now to the real topic for today’s post (Well what I’m telling myself is the real topic, I like to have at least an idea about what I will write before I sit down to type)

Whilst procrastinating the other week I read a blog post that someone had shared through Facebook and continued through some of the comments. And boy I tell you people were having a field day. After scrolling through at least 50 I looked to the scroll bar thing on the right hand side of the screen (you know what I’m talking about, I’m just not sure if it has a normal name that my brain has just conveniently decided to forget, thanks brain). Anyway I looked at it and see that it is barely a tenth of the way down and the bar thing that shrinks according the amount you can scroll (jeepers, this is really a difficult thing to describe, I promise you, you do actually know what I’m talking about. If somebody knows a way for me to get this explained in less words, please help a girl out and tell me). Well that thing was really tiny. What I really mean is that this one single post had loads and I do mean loads of comments.

Now I must admit I felt a bit jealous. Comments mean readers and well if I didn’t want people to read my blog than I would write it in a book and hide it under my bed. But the thing was a lot of these comments were criticizing the author’s opinion and some were really mean. Also the topic of the post wasn’t wildly controversial nor the authors opinion really out there. It was however very personal on a really personal topic (And before you ask, yes I do realise that I’m being extremely vague and that people generally find that annoying but, I don’t want the actual blog post to be identifiable by my post).  The thing is opinions are funny things cos a person is usually passionate that their one is correct yet there are so many different ones for the same issue and many times they can directly conflict. So that point isn’t ground-breaking or anything but here’s the thing: the author took the time to write out is opinion and the circumstances that lead to the forming of it which involved telling complete strangers about things that some married couples would never share with each other. So to have some of these complete strangers slam you for this would be quite heart-breaking, I mean no one wants to be told that they are wrong. Personally I’m really sensitive and don’t think I would cope very well at all.

Ok so I got that far with this post and left it for a few days, and I have now learnt that you should never do that because the moment is gone and you move on to what you want your next post to be about which causes the dilemma of do you completely scrap the unfinished post or do you fake like the time lapse never occurred and give up on the new idea or do you make a super long post. In my case the last one is not really an option as most of my posts are longer than the average person’s attention span so I went with the unstated option of just telling it how it is.

Anyway where I was going with the previous post was that while I want comments, I don’t really want mean ones and let’s face it the internet makes it a lot easier to be mean. I feel that one of the reasons why this persons post generated so much conversation was the reader (in this case me) felt almost that the opinion was being pushed too much, like it was wrong to have a different one. With personal topics mainly things like love, this is generally not a good idea. Because to be honest I thought both the blogger and some of the commenters had valid points they were just at opposite ends of a spectrum I would sit in the middle of.

But, then it makes me think that maybe having posts that are all out me are not all that bad, because at least I won’t be openly criticising another person’s opinion. But the thing is in real life I am known for being opinionated and on a bad day the type of person that does not allow others to express theirs if it conflicts with mine (I would argue that in most cases I in fact I do let them share the opinion but it is in fact wrong so I respectfully point out these wrong areas but like I said that is on a bad day and it is something I’m working on to correct so yay aims for self-improvement). Ok, I would just like to point out that I see how hypocritical this post could be viewed  as I have kinda sort of maybe  just said that I don’t use this blog for opinions when in reality you would probably find that almost every sentence contains one. I was also going for the don’t post anything you would regret later but hey, I regret most things I do in my life so why should this post be any different.

Can I just point out how difficult it is to start sentences while writing a post. There are only so many ways to do it for example “So”, “Now”, “Anyway” which is almost always followed by “what I mean” or “What I’m trying to say”. Let’s not forget “But” and “And” which are sometimes but not always followed by a comma because I am sure there is a punctuation rule regarding it but I cannot be bothered looking it up. Oh don’t let me forget “The thing is” or “Ok” which by the way is another troublesome word because I don’t know if caps matter or not.  Is It “OK” or “ok”? And then you have the whole punctuation thing again so I really cannot win with those who care about that kind of stuff. Now, you as the reader probably did not notice my lack of creativity regarding how I start my sentences and now that I have pointed it out  the issue will annoy you forever but I thought that I would write about it so that any who did notice and did care (which is most likely no one based on the page view stats I can access) would be aware that I am not oblivious to the issue but in reality just have not yet figured out a solution. Again if anyone does know or has any tips, feedback (but preferably the constructive or positive kind) is welcomed.

Ok, I think I will end this post now and hope that it is: One, not as bad as I think it is (In general I have disliked every post so far and then liked it more later) and two, that the next one will be better (because regardless of the actual quality of this one improvement is almost always a worthy goal).

I would also like the posts to be funnier but hey, genius cannot be taught and wit cannot be forced so I won’t expect a miracle.

Till next time