I Took A Break From Posting and It Was What I Needed

I needed to take a break from writing but now I'm ready to be back.

To my subscribers, I apologize for not having written a post in several months. Recently, I had some life changes. I gained more responsibilities in my 9-5 job and I got married. During that time, I lost the joy for writing.

Towards the end of the summer of last year, I felt like I was trying to churn out as many posts as possible within my niche of running. Everything felt artificial. I started to feel like “what’s the point” with whatever I was writing. Writers block was running strong and I realized it was because I wasn’t writing what I want to write.

I took a step back to reflect. I thought to myself, “what’s the end game of my writing? Why am I doing this?” At first, it was to build a side hustle, sprinkled with the pipe dream of it replacing my 9-5 someday. Then I thought, what’s the point of replacing my 9-5 for a job that’s 24/7 with a lot more risk? Sure, maybe there’s ‘potential’ for higher income in the internet age but content is getting drowned out with A.I. anyways. People are looking for a human connection when they read something online now. At least that’s what I want to strive for. I don’t want to strive to become a content mill.

For those of you that don’t know me, I work my 9-5 as a Demand Planner for a supplement company. I enjoy the company I work for, I like my boss and my coworkers. That’s something that I know a lot of people can’t say.

So why would I want to trade out my 9-5? Well, I think that I got sucked into the side of YouTube and LinkedIn hustle culture that tells you to leave it all behind. Sure, there’s downsides to working a corporate job but it’s not all doom and gloom. There’s a lot of stability in it and I’m better off than a lot of other people. Do I wish that I could be further ahead than I am now? Of course but don’t we all.

I’m writing this post to basically show who reads this a glimpse into who I am. I try not to bring up my personal life in my writings but now I’m starting to think I should. What’s the point of all this if I don’t make a connection with others?

The internet is riddled with people trying to sell you something in today’s age. I don’t want to sell you a subscription to my Substack. I want my Substack to sell itself. So many people have become used car salesman online and I find it disgusting. Even if they are making a good living at what cost? To sell your soul?

I don’t want to do that. I just want to write and get my ideas out there and if extra income comes along the way, then great. If not, I want to keep doing what I love doing.

These are some of the things that I’m passionate about:

• Running: with a site titled Running Relentless of course I love running. The passion of running goes deeper than just exercise for me. I look at running as a mental training ground for myself. The thought of pushing myself to my limits excites me. I want to see what’s on the other side.

• Writing: Despite not posting anything in a while, I was still writing almost everyday. Writing is how I think. That’s something about me that’ll never change. There’s a certain piece about the process of writing that I find freeing. There’s no judgement and I can determine exactly how I think about something. Will the readers occasionally interpret something different than I meant? Of course. But it’s my job as a writer to be intentional about all the things I say.

• Health: Even thought I know running intense races like ultra marathons isn’t the most optimal thing for my health but the key word there is optimal. Who wants to make sure that every piece of their life is optimal? That sounds exhausting. I’m a human being, not a robot. Optimization isn’t the point of all this. To quote Kierkegaard, “Life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to experience.”

• My marriage: Even though I’m married now, that doesn’t mean I’ll ever stop dating my wife. She’s always number 1 to me and I’m always looking for ways to improve upon our marriage.

Now that I got some personal things out of the way, lets move on to what I have doing the last several months.

• Wedding: At the end of October, I got married! It was a wonderful day, a beautiful wedding and everything went perfect. It was the greatest weekend of my life.

• LA Marathon: I won a lottery at my work to be sponsored to run the LA Marathon. I was only given about a 10 week notice to train. I’m not going to a PR time but I’m going to show up to see what I’m made of. My aunt and cousins live in Orange County so this is a great opportunity to see them.

• The Rut: I got into The Rut 50K in Big Sky, Montana. This race is intense. It starts at 8,000 feet altitude and climbs up to 10,000 feet. Living in Chicago, training for mountain races is tough. How is this flatlander going to train for this race? Stay tuned. (See the image below of what kind of climb this looks like). Yikes.

Photo from The Ruts website.

I’m excited to start this new chapter of Running Relentless. I’m still going to publish out useful content for readers but it’s going to be more carefully crafted and done with love and care. I will never publish something that is generated with A.I. to get clicks. Part of the passion I have for writing is to figure things out for myself and how will I figure things out for myself if I have some machine do it for me?