Text: Joo­nas Ma­ju­ri

Trans­la­ti­on: Sirk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen

When I was pon­de­ring whet­her or not to start as a blog­ger, I ap­p­ro­ac­hed the to­pic from a num­ber of pers­pec­ti­ves. What things could I give and what could I lose? I gu­ess they would tell me if my posts are not good enough, or if my style of wri­ting is not ap­p­rop­ri­a­te for the for­mat. And I could get caught red-han­ded by an ac­qu­ain­tan­ce, ha­ving pos­ted an ext­re­me­ly pro­found text on­li­ne. That ac­tu­al­ly hap­pe­ned al­re­a­dy. ”I wouldn’t have gu­es­sed that a guy like you would be wri­ting a blog”, said one of my re­a­ders.

Luc­ki­ly, wri­ting is not a pu­nis­hab­le of­fen­ce, es­pe­ci­al­ly sin­ce I pro­mi­sed to write ni­ce­ly. The pa­per I am blog­ging for pro­mo­tes all things good and va­lu­ab­le, so that should be okay. Still, it would have been ea­sier to say ”no thank you” and re­fu­se. I could have said, ”Thank you for yo­ur kind of­fer, but un­for­tu­na­te­ly I am too busy, and I wouldn’t be a good blog­ger any­way. Bet­ter ask so­me­o­ne el­se.”

Ove­rall, wouldn’t it be simp­lest just to do one’s dai­ly rou­ti­nes, go to work in the mor­ning and bring home the gro­ce­ries in the eve­ning? Af­ter that, apart from the ob­li­ga­to­ry du­ties, one could read the dai­ly pa­per or lis­ten to an au­dio book and pre­pa­re for the next work­day. Why bot­her ta­king up new chal­len­ges? Does it even make sen­se in this life si­tu­a­ti­on to take on anyt­hing ext­ra? Or what do you think?

Do you know what? If we do not take a step in­to a new di­rec­ti­on now, we may ne­ver do it. Life is too short to be was­ted in proc­ras­ti­na­ti­on. What could I do if I were not af­raid? I might sell my hou­se and move so­mew­he­re new. I might start an en­terp­ri­se and de­sign a web­si­te for it. I might take a risk and in­vest my mo­ney in the stock mar­ket. I might study for a new oc­cu­pa­ti­on and try dif­fe­rent jobs. I might book flights and go on a round-the-world trip. Or should I just le­a­ve all this bust­le and move to live in the wil­der­ness?

The gre­a­test strug­g­le with choi­ces ta­kes place in one’s mind. It is dif­fi­cult to let go of all things safe and fa­mi­li­ar. Far too of­ten ac­ti­on is pre­ven­ted by fear. Alt­hough I know at the ra­ti­o­nal le­vel what I should do, I of­ten fail to take the first step. The si­tu­a­ti­on may be si­mi­lar to that ex­pe­rien­ced by the rich yo­ung man who was in­vi­ted to en­ter God’s king­dom. The on­ly con­di­ti­on was that he should sell his pro­per­ty. But "when the yo­ung man he­ard this, he went away sad, be­cau­se he had great we­alth" (Matt. 19:22).

I do not en­cou­ra­ge any­bo­dy to be reck­less or fool­har­dy. It is on­ly too of­ten that we read about un­for­tu­na­te ac­ti­ons mo­ti­va­ted by overw­hel­ming emo­ti­on or a de­si­re to show off.

How, then, do I know when it is a good time to act, or which di­rec­ti­on to take? Even if a storm is ra­ging in the dark­ness out­si­de, I can in­ward­ly feel calm and pe­a­ce­ful. At such a lu­cid mo­ment I may see cle­ar­ly what step I should take next. And that vi­si­on may be suf­fi­cient to trig­ger ac­ti­on. But there are al­so ti­mes when I can hard­ly see my own hand in the fog and even less my goal. Yet I can start by ta­king one small step at a time. It is good to take the first step, or el­se I will not know what el­se there may be wai­ting for me.

The first step could be an email, a phone call, or a surp­ri­se vi­sit. It could be a form fil­led or an ac­ti­on plan out­li­ned. No mat­ter what that step is, the im­por­tant thing is to take it.

So far, I have on­ly po­si­ti­ve ex­pe­rien­ces about being a blog­ger. I have had many re­war­ding dis­cus­si­ons with my re­a­ders. When I de­ci­ded to ac­cept the chal­len­ge a ye­ar ago, I thought – now or ne­ver.