A Parable

Once upon a time there was a nice man who started a blog and liked to write posts that revolved around his family growing up and his own wife and kids. These posts made him happy because it reminded him of all the wacky, weird, funny and nice things that happened to him when he was a kid, and they helped him to see how blessed he was to have such an awesome family now. Although this man didn’t have much in the way of material possessions growing up, he had something that many kids didn’t. He knew he was loved by parents who did their best to teach him what was important in life, and by his brothers and sisters, even if they occasionally got into arguments or fights.

The man did his best to put aside some time each week to write his post, to edit it, and to make it just right in the hope that someone would read it and smile, maybe even laugh, or say “Hey, I remember that!” Hopefully there would be only good memories, because in his mind the good had far outweighed the bad. Not that everything was perfect growing up, far from it, but isn’t it easier to recall the good and the positive than it is to scrounge around the depths of your brain and relive the bad and the negative? Posting to his blog pleased the man, for he loved to write and to share with others the things he had done and been through as the eighth of nine kids. He wanted others to know that family was and always would be one of the most important things in his life.

Then something terrible happened to him. It was a project at work, or more importantly, a project deadline. His usual writing time was taken over by work related activities because this project “just had to be out the door” by a certain date. He was okay with this for a short time, but then the deadline got moved out by a couple of weeks. Being the hard worker his parents had taught him to be, he kept up the crazy schedule in order to make the new deadline. Much to his despair, the deadline was moved out a couple more weeks with the expectation that it would take the same effort to meet the newest deadline. Weekends became more time to work instead of spending time with his family.

Not wanting to leave gaps in his blog, the nice man hastily threw together a few posts and put them up for everyone to see, knowing in his heart they weren’t his best. “I guess it’s better to have a mediocre post than no post at all.” he thought. This comforted him and helped him to make it through the long days spent at his work laptop, doing what he had to in order to keep a steady paycheck. Yet, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he could somehow make some time to work on his blog. There just had to be a way.

However, when he sat down to write something for his blog, there was nothing but an empty screen staring back at him. It seemed that his blog posting days were over, gone like the long summer days that he missed out on because he was working to meet a project deadline. This made the man sad, for it took away the pleasure of writing and the happiness of recalling fun times with friends and family. “It’s over.” he thought. “I’ve lost my creative drive. I’ve got nothing to write about.”

The moral of this story: All work and no play makes “8 of Nine” a dull blog.