Pressure to Perform

Two months ago, this little blog got one or two visitors a day. Now, hundreds of people stop by here daily!

How is this even real? I always dreamed of having a blog that people read but I never thought it would actually happen. And now 200-300 people are coming to my site every day. Sure, that will go down as the Hacker News thing gets older, but I still had 1000 users visit my site in May before the Hacker News thing even happened. Compare that to February where I had 43 people visit this blog, and we can all see a clear growth trajectory.

It's really freaking me out. I so badly don't want to disappoint you. I simultaneously feel so thankful that it makes me a bit emotional, and it also scares the living daylights out of me. I don't feel worthy of the fascinating people this attention has brought in my life. I get so scared that they'll like... find out I'm a loser or something and then reject me.

But maybe I'm likable the way I am. People have been letting me know which of my posts are their favorite, and most of them are things that I wrote just for me.

And furthermore, even if this all goes away and everyone rejects me... does it really matter what they think?

At the end of the day, this is my blog, and it might be at its best when it's messy. The more human I am here, the better I feel. And the closer I get to my own heart, the closer I get to yours.

It's just that right now it's scary and overwhelming. This is probably only going to get worse as I focus more on larger pieces and put more effort into marketing them.

I'm hoping that acknowledging this issue helps make it easier.