About Blogging and Investing

This is Post No. 104, which makes it 2 years' worth of blog posts for this weekly blog. I hope readers will forgive me if I blog about other things during this time every year.

Blogging has never been easy for me, despite this being a weekly blog. By Thursday of every week, I would have to think about what to blog for the weekend and after I have found a idea, I would have to think about the content and organise them to form a coherent post. Occasionally, I would also need to carry out some research to check the facts. There have been a few occasions where the facts did not match the hypothesis and I had to discard the idea and find a new one. Even when I start to write the post, the thoughts do not always flow smoothly. I have to review and re-write. It is often a 2 steps forward, 1 step backward process. When I have finally completed the post, I would read and re-read, to check whether the facts are correct and see if the sentences could be written in a clearer way. The process of writing the post easily takes 2 to 3 hours. So, if I am late in my weekly blog posts, that is usually what happens. 

Despite the hard work, blogging in itself is satisfying, knowing that I could share knowledge with other fellow investors in Singapore. If not, I could never have persevered till today. Not only that, I have found a group of like-minded bloggers and readers who appreciate my posts. I would like to take this occasion to thank them for their continuous support during these 2 years. 

Besides the inherent satisfaction of blogging, I also like to keep track of the pageview count on my blog after writing a new post. It is just like a film director who not only wishes that his film is good but also popular. A high pageview count would delight me, while a low pageview count would leave me a little discouraged. Every week, I would write a post, hoping that the pageview count would increase. Sometimes, I would think that a particular blog post was well-written and could attract many views, but it turned out to be disappointing. Sometimes, I see the pageview count of other bloggers numbering into the million and wonder when could I ever come close to it. Sometimes, I see new bloggers coming onto the scene and their pageview counts quickly exceed mine in a short space of time.

In a way, the pageview count is like the wealth we are trying to accumulate. Every week and every month, we would invest our savings to increase our wealth. Sometimes, we would think that we have made a good investment and deserve large returns, only to see it fall short of expectations. Sometimes, we see millionaires living in private condominiums and driving large cars and wonder when would it be our turn. Sometimes, we see people younger than us making more money than us. 

That is Life. As a "young" blogger, I can understand your frustrations. You often hear that you can get rich by working hard, spending wisely and investing your income, but you hardly see any results despite 2-3 years of living frugally. You saw everything that I mentioned above and wondered if it is still worth the efforts and whether you are on the right path. As an "old" investor, I can assure you that you are on your way to achieving your goals. Every step you take today might not seem significant today, but every step is one step closer to your goals. When you have reached your goals and you look back, I believe you would not want to have it in any other ways. If it was too easy, you would have lost interest and not appreciate what you have achieved. So, take heart and march on. Just like if this blog post is not popular, write the next one!

See related blog posts:

• The Beginning of the End
• A Year's Worth of Blog Posts
• The Value of (The) Boring Investor Blog