What's the Relationship Between Difficulty and Worth?

They say that nothing that is worthwhile is easy. Boy, are they right. Telling that guy that you really like him sure the heck isn't easy, but sometimes it actually doesn't bite you in the butt and it ends up working. Going on the interview for that job so you can have a little extra spending money while you're away at college isn't pleasant at all, but when you get the phone call/ e-mail/ letter in the mail that you've been hired over the guy who speaks three different languages, it sure the heck feels like it's all paying off. But that's one thing that the internet - or internet fame - doesn't provide. It sure the heck isn't easy, and nine out of ten times you can't quite tell whether or not it's worth all the effort at all.

This is the problem that I'm having with this blog, right this very second. I won't lie. I'm not a very interesting person. I don't go on extravagant adventures every day, and I don't often have moments where metaphors just flow off my tongue like rivers, which readers tend to enjoy quite a bit (or at least, those of the nerdy variety do). As I type this, I'm wondering how many people will read this,whether they're from my home country of the United States or from Uruguay or Madagascar. I'm wondering how many will share this over social media sites like Facebook or Twitter, or how many will tell their friends about this or other posts from Talk Nerdy to Me verbally or in their next text message. The simple truth is that unless you're someone fabulously entertaining like Wheezy Waiter or Nerdy and Quirky, or someone wildly intelligent like the teams that make up the Vlogbrothers, Crash Course, or Mental Floss... You just don't get the perks of producing stuff online.

I didn't start this thinking, "I'm going to write my thoughts all over the internet, and people will read it, and I'll become an internet celebrity and life will be wonderful." I started this with the thought, "I really enjoy writing, and I'm glad that I can be a part of a class that lets me do this. Also, it's a good thing Abby (http://luxxphotography.blogspot.com/) is in the class with me, because if it was just me I'd probably be in a mental facility from being forced to listen to the average high school student's woes." But after graduating from high school and moving on with this blog on my own, I'm beginning to realize exactly how difficult this whole blogging thing is. No more can I rely on a prompt to get me through another five blog posts, and no more do I have a deadline to complete the adequate number of posts. Now, I do it all on my own: the ideas, the timing. Everything. Where once I had 300+ views per month, I am now lucky to get over 150. So here's where we find the problem. Just because something is difficult, does that make it automatically worth my time and effort?

The simple truth is that while the internet makes a lot of things easier, it makes being noticed a little bit harder. Sure, there are some people who are noticed only because of the internet, like fantastic singers and the like, but as a blogger your work so quickly gets lost amid hundreds of thousands of other posts, and every attempt to advertise your work through social media is drowned ten times quicker. It's like fighting against quicksand; you struggle so much to break free and go on to easier things where, with luck, you'll have more than just one or two regular viewers, but the more you try to free yourself the faster you sink to the bottom. As with many things, I won't pretend to have an answer, and I won't pretend to be the only person to observe this phenomenon. All we can do is fight on and hope that maybe someday, someone will think highly of what we think and what we have to say. All we can do is continue on.