Last night I was poking around my website for inspiration on how I could reenergise this blog and spark some interest within myself to write for it again… regularly.

Part of me wishes to retain my previous post and comments, and part of me wishes to start afresh, or even shut the site down. Reading through previous posts I see such spite and anger toward society, my self and others, but really not much love. I remember how I felt at those points, and understand why I wrote what I did, but I have to remind myself at times that I am reading my own work because I really wish I could go back to those points and kick my own arse. It feels really weird disagreeing with what I have said, and stranger still agreeing with people with whom I once clashed vehemently.

I suppose this suggests personal growth, and maybe a little maturity. For that I am thankful. God’s grace and mercy followed me even through these times, and I praise Him for not leaving me in that place.

I guess I’ve learnt a few lessons along the way. I can’t put them all into words, but some are pretty clear. The main one is that negativity is pointless.

I used to take pride in pointing out the ‘realistic’ perspective and how things really were and I used to get so frustrated with folk who tried to put a positive spin on situations that were clearly less than favorable. But overtime I have learnt that this helps no one, least of all myself. Outlook colors reality, so choosing a positive outlook paints my perception of the world for the better and inspires hope. People need hope, it’s what keeps us all going and encourages us to not give up. Stifle hope, and life loses it’s meaning. Negativity does this, it strangles the hope necessary to the survival of tough situations.

The other thing I learnt is that I am part of the problem. I guess you could say that I knew this already, but I certainly didn’t live or talk like I believed it. This lesson is why I haven’t had a lot to write lately, well that combined with the recognition that most of what I wrote was whinging and complaining about this or that. Sometimes I lack the energy to look at a situation constructively, and when this is the case there’s little point writing as nothing really worthwhile results. There are other things I’ve learnt but can’t really articulate right now so I’ll talk about them maybe some other time.

Then there’s some barriers I’ve hit as my life has changed over the past seven years that stifle blogging ambition. Sometimes I wonder if blogging was just a fad, something for folk that have too much to say, and not enough to do. Since becoming a father I have less time on my hands for the things I used to do. Often I find that I have a hard enough time keeping up with the social networking sites I’m involved with, let alone blogging. Family first as they say, and after work, responsibilities, spending time with loved ones and trying to treat my body right who has time to do anything else?

Then there’s the difference in job roles. It used to be that former roles I have occupied allowed me to put in bare minimum and perform successfully, but as I’ve progressed through the ranks this has changed. These days I’m involved in a lot of project work, and with it comes deadlines that demand more than 9 to 5 work hours. To position our family in a better spot financially I also strive to reach the maximum yearly performance rating so that my remuneration and performance bonuses are as high as possible. Again this demands more than what business hours allow. So yeah, I’m time poor, but then who isn’t these days?

So how do I overcome this and keep the words coming? Only thing I can come up with is finding topics that I’m inspired to discuss so writing here is pleasurable again, even in my limited downtime.

So what’s my plan? Honestly I don’t have a lot, but some ideas include rehashing old posts and contrasting them against my current perspectives, writing more about fatherhood and marriage, and the other things I’m passionate about like faith, technology and astronomy. Will I actually do it? I hope so, but I guess time will tell.

I don’t know if I’m going to keep self-hosting as I’m not really utilising many of the benefits it provides, and I feel this money could be better allocated elsewhere. I’ll keep my domains, but might move them across to a free blog hosting service. Maybe Blogger or similar. I have to sort out where the other websites I host are gonna go first but once that’s sorted out this blog will be moving. One thing I want to do is make the migration seamless so that if anyone looks for this site it gets redirected to wherever it ends up. That way those that use this site as a means of finding me online can still do so.

Let’s see how it all turns out. Take care folks.