On Happiness, Sour Grapes, and Other Discoveries

Flowers of Happiness - Eric Bruni

I've been noticing an interesting trend among some of my readers lately. More than a couple of them have read my things and commented on the fact that I sound happy or that I seem like a happy, centered person, in general. At first, I thought, "No, if you knew me, you'd know that's not true." But then I actually thought about it for a second and considered the possibility that they might be right. 

I'm definitely still capable of getting white-knuckle-level angry about things -- like all the stupidity going on out there in the world. For instance, I'm inwardly livid at all of these people who refuse to go get a COVID vaccine or take even the tiniest steps to take better care of the environment and make this shithole of a world a better place to be. 

And I actually feel comfortable using the word "furious" to describe how I feel about certain aspects of my personal life that truly aren't fair. I'm 45 years old and am, in many ways, still waiting to see what feels like a reasonable return on all the labor I put into my work and many of my personal relationships. I also fully get that I'm probably fighting a losing battle in at least a few of those cases. But those are situations (and in some cases people) that make me feel momentarily angry.

I realize I don't feel angry the rest of the time, so it's definitely not my default state anymore (if it ever was). I sometimes wonder how much of my tendency to self-identify as an angry, bitchy person over the years has indeed come from me at all. That's something I've usually been told by others, usually after I've just finished setting or reinforcing a boundary that should have been there all along. 

But yeah, maybe I am happy. I see too much beauty in the world around me these days not to be. This is especially the case since I've stopped drinking. I feel like my mind's reached this whole other level of clarity and sharpness that I've really been liking, especially when it comes to all my creative pursuits. 

A Very Green Visitor Crashed Our Card Game Last Night

So, as I've mentioned, Seth and I have been eating most of our dinners outside since just before Midsommar or so, as we were unexpectedly blessed with wonderful moderate weather this summer. Then after we eat, we like to sit and play cards for a while before going back inside to finish our workdays. Of course, it's been getting darker earlier and earlier, but the temperatures are still really moderate -- not even jacket weather yet -- so we've just been turning on the outside light over our table and carrying on as usual. (For now, anyway. Now that it's past the equinox, I'm sure it will be getting colder soon enough.)

Last night, we had this little visitor. At first, it tried to land on the back of my neck, and I freaked out because I didn't know what it was. It just felt big, heavy, flappy, and cold, so I figured it was a moth or something. Then it came back and landed on the wall next to us where we could see it better. We tried to shoo him away into the bushes (where I assume he belongs), but he kept coming back and insisting on perching nearby somewhere for the remainder of our card game. 

I could see it was a grasshopper of some kind, but I wanted to know what kind and Google suggests it's probably a katydid, especially considering it was nighttime. And since I'm also kind of a woo-woo witchy type, you know I wanted to know the spirit animal meaning. It's apparently growth, transformation, forward progress, and spiritual awareness. Grasshoppers of any kind -- especially any that are as brilliantly green as this one was -- are also supposed to be lucky and suggestive of prosperity. (Thanks, I'll take it. Especially the prosperity part.) 

5 Reasons Why People Aren't Reading Your Content

 

Naturally, content isn't just a big deal for writers and bloggers looking to make a living via their words these days. It's something everyone needs to worry about if they're serious about promoting their business, selling their products, or otherwise getting their voice out there. But becoming a decent enough writer to create readable content in the first place isn't typically enough to get people to notice it, click on it, and give it their time. 

Granted, I'm still making up for lost time as far as building my personal brand goes, but I'm getting there. Plus, I've been copywriting and creating web content for my clients for well over a decade at this point, and according to them, I know what I'm doing. That said, other writers I talk to online who are still getting the hang of this whole content creation thing tend to have the same question -- "Why aren't people reading my stuff?"

If you're in that boat, too, the bad news is that the issue probably is something you're doing wrong or could stand to improve on. But the good news is that -- whatever the problem -- it's totally fixable. So here are some excellent examples to think about.

1. Your content has zero personality.

There are hundreds of thousands of other writers out there trying to do exactly what you're doing -- get their writing seen, attract clients, build an audience, and so forth. Lots of them have the writing chops, too, and quite a few of them are going to be a lot better at writing than you are. There's only one thing you have that they don't, absolutely guaranteed -- your unique personality, perspective, and writing voice.

Great content, especially the type you'd post to a personal blog or on a platform like Medium, strikes a good balance between informative and personal. Yes, you should back up your content with facts when appropriate, but you should also be leveraging your personal experience. Tell your audience what you've learned and how you learned it. Speak to them like you would a friend or close relative.