What I dislike about blogging is not something to do with the idea of blogging itself, but self-imposed requirements I place on my own blogging endeavours.

These self-imposed requirements I have are nothing more than firmly held beliefs I have somewhere inside me that posts need to be of the highest quality—that they need to be well-researched, reference relevant other writing on the topic, and that I should add something to the human consciousness by publishing the post.

As an exercise to help myself escape this inner torment, let's examine each of these "requirements" I tell myself I need.

1. Well-researched

In some forms of written word, you expect that people have done their research on the topic they're presenting about. Non-fictional literature and journalism are two that come to mind.

I give myself permission to stray from this hard requirement. I do not need to research every known publication on the topic I'm writing about before I write about it.

Hell, I can type anything I want right now and assert it as fact. The sky is actually cornflowerblue, not blue-blue. (Sorry for the poor contrast.)

To be clear: I think it's foolish to do no research whatsoever for a topic you're writing about—even for your own blog. If you don't, you may find yourself with outdated information or griping about things that are no longer issues, but it's OK to recognize that you can't possibly know everything about your topic.

2. References other writing

Using the writing of others as a starting point to form your own opinions or come up with new ideas is, to me, an unrivaled beauty of human existence.

To then give kudos or recognition to the other person or people for being the catalyst for your blog post, while not required, is an honourable thing to do.

Why is it honourable? For starters, backlinks are great for SEO. So, in a way, you're thanking them by helping improve their SEO.

See how cool it was that I referenced an article? I'm sure MailChimp's SEO ranking will probably skyrocket now that I've backlinked them.

3. Adds to human consciousness

The way this final point is worded gives it more credibility than it should. Blogs are places to share one's thoughts, and writing is a deeply personal and brave exercise.

My belief that you need to have some novel idea or concept to share with humanity is misplaced. I once read an article (someone else's writing) that mentioned how you shouldn't be afraid of writing about something that's been written about before. They noted that reiterating something that's been said before with your own perspective and words can help a concept make sense to someone because the words or examples you used.

I think that's a really neat way to relieve yourself of any responsibility to have the topic of your writing be never-before-conceived.

Reflection

As odd as it is, this process of having thought about what gets in the way of my writing, putting them in a list, and analyzing each one has really helped clear my mind of doubt.

I hope this is a turning point for me.

If I'm lucky, maybe it's a turning point for someone else reading this, too.