The Affirmation of Perseverance

On September 8^th, 2009, I accepted Sandra Martini’s 30 Day Blog Challenge.  Simple contest: blog 30 times in 30 days to see what will happen when a person does “one ordinary thing” consistently.  I knew going into the contest that it would indeed be a “challenge”, and not because there wasn’t anything to write about.  I have blog post ideas aplenty. The challenge has been to find the time to write a well-written blog post that’s meaningful to my readers.

Why did I sign up? Guess I was ready for a good challenge.  I’m new to blogging; this seemed like a good way to raise the bar. Today is the last day of the contest and when this blog is posted, I’ll have met the challenge. I feel at once celebratory and relieved. More than once, I was ready to throw in the towel.  A niggling voice in my head whispered, “Is this really worth it?  It’s just a silly self-imposed personal challenge. Nobody will know if you just quietly bail out. And even if they do, does it really matter?”

Why persevere?  If a person gives up and nobody knows about it, is she still a quitter? 

Somewhere along the way, I realized, “Yep, I can quit. Any time I want, with very little consequence. Lives will not be impacted, revenue will not be lost. The only disappointed one will be me.” Luckily, I remembered that my opinion does count for something, even if I happen to be the only one keeping stock. For me, that’s all the more payoff the #30dayblog challenge needed to yield.