Why Hello World!  After long and careful consideration (almost exactly a year in fact), I am finally ready to make my blog debut!  While the idea of blogging peaked my interest, I used to think “who care about what’s going on in my life anyway?  I’m not that interesting to anyone outside of my friends and family, right?”  Well if I have learned anything from reading blogs over the last few months, I couldn’t have been more wrong!  It’s the “mundane” details of people’s lives that make these sort of narratives so rich and interesting.

I made reading blogs a bit of a “study” while I contemplated creating my own and gained quite a few other insights.  Here are just a couple learnings that I *hope* will guide me so that others may derive some value from my thought, experiences, and general ramblings

Say Cheese!

While I love reading my favorite bloggers and get a little too excited when I find new posts sitting in my RSS feed reader, I will plainly admit that sometimes I only have enough focus available to look at the pictures.  Just like my approach to cracking into a fresh magazine, I have to flip every page, check out all the glossy photos, and circle back around to the stories that are really interesting.  Sad, but true.  Here’s to many photos from this point forward!

Develop A “Voice”

We are each unique in the way we view the world and the way we talk about it.  In person, there are lots of verbal and non-verbal cues that define our personality.  Strip all those things away (as the veil of the internet so kindly does), and you have to work a little harder to figure out what makes you unique and distinct.  Hopefully, one day, a “Why Hello Dolly” post will have a character all its own – identifiable out of a metaphorical blog line up.

Share What You Love

Pinterest has taught us all a very important lesson – what you love says a lot about who you are.  I trust the blogs I read and look to them for ideas about what I might like to buy/eat/wear/read about etc.  To say I am a passionate person well, that’s a bit of an understatement.  So you will most definitely be learning about more-than-a-few-of-my-favorite-things!  I’ll write about running gear staples in a future post but here’s a preview.

Let Your Freak Flag Fly!

Life is exhausting (and far less interesting) when you edit, edit, edit.  Thanks to the internet, not matter what it is you like, there is someone else out there that likes it too!  While the internet certainly has its fair share of mean spirited moments, most people are supportive, interesting, and want to learn more.  You can detect authenticity (or a lack there of) so being real is vitally important.  While you can sometimes be selective in sharing, you are most interesting when you put your whole self out there – whoever that whole self really is.

Short is Sweet!

While these are certainly not the only lessons I have learned, I have also learned the power of brevity.  I have always been prolific when it comes to writing – papers, tests, e-mails.  No matter the medium, if I am stringing sentences together, you can count on there being a whole lot of them!  I have learned to be more concise (work has been a lesson in the importance of bullet points) and I will hopefully translate that lesson into my writing here.  While I could ironically continue on about the importance of concision, I will close this here.

It’s nice to meet you and I look forward to getting to know you better!

What blogs do you read?  Is catching up on blog reading a daily ritual for you like it is for me?

Any other advice for me as I begin this endeavor?  Tell me in the comments!