Following the Leader

The world of blogging is integrally tied into the “social media thing”. I started my blog as a dare to myself and then found out my deeper fear. Every social platform I went to join, people were friending and following. What the heck did it mean? What did this really mean? What did they want and why? How could I not view myself as an ego maniac if I acted like this? Oh the issues that started to ooze.

I’ve just never been much of a follower. I was friends with both the preppies and the punkers. In my heart, I’m a leader yet I seem to have a huge blockage for making that happen on a large-scale. I guess I’ve been leading a life of my own or, call out the spade, isolating. I said I wanted to make new friends but I think I lied. There were risks at not being in control there.

As I created my blog, I didn’t even really know what a blog was. Then, I knew I should follow some people but finding the blogs that fit me to follow has been hard. And to keep my in-box from being glutted, I needed to not choose too many at once.

I began to follow some writing and design blogs. After 8 months, I am slowly starting to comment. Ironically, in person, I would not hesitate to tell you how I feel. But how you perceive me to be and who I really am can often be surprisingly different.

Why would I hesitate to reach out and say something? Maybe, you won’t care or might not get what I mean or read something else into what I’ve said? These are the only reasons I can think of but isn’t being ignored or embarrassed a good enough reason not to reach out? No. Because we won’t be alone for the rest of our lives as there’s a great big world out there. And these isolationist attitudes condemn us to unhappiness and stagnation.

Maybe, to be a leader, as good bloggers end up being, and to understand what people want or need from a leader, you first have to be a good follower. You have to support others in their endeavors and lift them up. Quote them, extol them, pin them, tweet them, and follow them. I’m about to get busy trying to figure out what that looks like. Because I haven’t done so much of this and I think I may come off looking like I’m all and only about me. Shyness often looks like snobbishness.

As humans, we head for our demise faster if we don’t recognize all the other humans as busy being human too. When I joined Facebook, I was surprised to gain a community. As a blogger, I’ve been acting like an island despite myself. No more. Even at the risk of receiving more nasty-gram, I will travel out of my comfort zone to reach out to the blogging community and a broader audience. And to listen. No hard feelings if my thing isn’t yours. Unfollow at will. Give your attention to those who give you what you need. We can agree to disagree.
Love,
Shalagh

PS. And if Facebook is easier to read my feeds, find me there at the Shalavee.com page. I’m a huge Pinterest fan but a lousy Twitterer. I guess learning that and Instagram will be next.