If you’ve paid enough attention to my life, you know that I have generally stopped podcasting. This seems strange to most of the people who used to follow me. Podcasts have never been more popular, and sites like Patreon and Youtube offer revenue opportunities that were unimaginable when I first began to podcast back in 2006. Some  have become rich, and even famous doing this stuff. So why did I quit?

When I finished writing my book, I was still processing the pain of my breakup. I had a lot of free time suddenly, and I was living in a two bedroom apartment with my mom, hoping against hope that the book would magically catch fire. It did not. It was time to get a job, get my life together, and forget about my dreams of success (whatever that meant).

I spent around two years dealing with my feelings of loss and humiliation. It was a slow process at first. Instead of denying my emotions in an effort to contain them, I learned more than just the need to accept them. I discovered that digging a little deeper into the reason for my pain allowed me a greater understanding of my own self. It was during this time that I discovered that I had been emotionally distant from my family. I resolved to change this. But where was I to start?

If you’re going to change something about yourself, you have to be willing to challenge the way you’ve done things in the past. In my childhood, one word stood above all others to me: no. It was a word that gave my younger self independence and power. As a middle child, you are often the ignored one, and so my mechanism to stand out was to be difficult. If the whole family was into an idea, I was against it. I mean, it got so bad that I would throw a fit because the family wanted to go out Trick or Treating at Halloween and I was crying because I felt “forced” to wear a costume. Could you imagine such a difficult child?

So to make up for this deficit of fun-killing, I resolved myself to become the brother, the son, and the uncle that would rarely say no. If something was asked of me, rather than grumble and complain, I would do it with a positive attitude. At first, the new me was met with mistrust. Was something wrong, they wondered. I was acting a little bit off, and old attitudes can be hard to change. I needed to do something big if I was going to convince people I was different.

My spirit of discord as a youth was perpetual, so you can guess what kind of fun I was around Christmas. So when I finally made my move, and declared myself filled with holiday cheer, they were more than a little suspicious at my sudden change. But soon enough, it was undeniable to them that I had changed.

Since that time, I have endeavored to continue to improve all of my relationships, and to grow personally. While the whole world was busy trying to get attention, I shied away from it. Instead of feeling compelled to talk, I felt compelled to listen. The arrogant of youth is gone. I’m a forty year old man now, a far cry from the twenty six year old that first picked up a microphone.

It’s not to suggest I have nothing to say. I simply know that an opinion should be allowed to change, and I never feel married enough to an idea to try and profit from it. It’s why I’ve switched my focus to writing fiction. Writing Bible Stories taught me a great deal about this genre, and of the power of metaphor.

I’ll have more to share soon, but for now, the process of blogging is simply to tighten up my skills a little while I continue working on projects that I feel invested in.