I Want to Keep Swimming

How did you find this blog? Blogwalking? Link from a friend? Or from my Facebook wall? I don't always post my link in my Facebook wall. Part of me still value these blogs as my diary, a hidden aspect of my life. Some postings are private, some others are public. I shared those which I considered public, and let the other posts called for their own readers. It's a bit quiet here, but it doesn't make me feel like drowning. Yet, my hobby to go blogwalking sometimes made me feel that I'm drowning in a sea of blogs. There are so many nice to read blogs out there. To improve citizen journalism means that we need to encourage people to write. The more successful we promote writing the merrier the blogosphere will be. I'll be blogwalking even more, and drowning myself there...neglecting my own blogs.

My token from a recent blogwalking is from a post in Jeff Goins' blog. The title attracted me, "What to Do When You're Drowning in a Sea of a Million Blogs". It is something that I relate to my feeling of being drowned when I lost my time in blogwalking. Surprisingly the writer contributor, Don McAllister, who has his own Linchpin Bloggers presented a swimming analogy. To me, the analogy is more into a drowning analogy because I knew the feeling of being drowned. When I was a little girl (may be I was a third grader then), I had an unforgettable experience. I shared about it in a post about guardian angel in my blog Journey to His Words, a religious reflective blog in Bahasa Indonesia. I was walking beside the swimming pool with my little brother. I saw a teenager who cried because her father persisted on making her swim in that very cold water (in a resort area in the mountain). I remember that I bragged to my brother that if I were that girl I'd be brave to try that cold water. It wouldn't cross my mind that my little brother would push me into that pool even when I wasn't finish laughing. The only thing I remember is the cold water, and that I kept on trying to reach the nearest side of the pool. We weren't accompany by any adult, so I knew my survival was on my own struggle and God. I prayed, I swam...and I survived. This experience kept haunting me when I was tired and had my feet cramped while swimming, or when darkness came around me while swimming in a late afternoon. So the swimming analogy astonishingly attract my senses to keep floating, to keep swimming. I know that I've got to focus on the act of swimming!

I suddenly realized that I was focusing on the feeling of being drowned instead of continue swimming. When I felt that I'm drowning in a sea of a million blogs because I lost my precious time reading others' posts or comments, I should remember to set my focus on swimming like an athlete. Time is also precious for competing athletes. So, I need to focus on my writing first before taking a rest by blogwalking. Priority becomes important. I realized that lately I didn't write as much as before. Excuses could be invented (although it's true that my schedule offline was so hectic) but I should be the master of my time...and I want to keep on swimming writing. Thank you Jeff and Don for the inspiration!