Monday
Apr302012
I'm Doing THIS
Monday, April 30, 2012 
← So, I'm doing this.
It seems too crazy to be true, except that it's actually true, and I'm actually doing it.
I will be speaking at TEDxRegina on May 16th!
I am pretty stunned by the news, and, for once, I don't have much to say.
As my talk relates to the transformational power of online personal narrative, though, I'm curious about how blogging has affected you and your life. Has it changed things for you? What has it done, and how?
Reader Comments (29)
I have made friends, lost friends, found lovers, lost lovers, found employment opportunities, built tight-knit networks, and seen and done things far beyond my wildest dreams because of blogging.
I've been at this in some form or another since the late 90s. Although my audience is quite small, and interest in my blog has fallen off over the years (as has my interest/ability to write), I can't even imagine what my life would be like if I hadn't discovered blogging.
Also - congratulations!
Lots of ways.
1) It's helped me to meet lots of people in lots of locations around the worlds that I otherwise would have never met, as in "normal" life, I tend to spend any free time with folks who are very similar to me (as far as demographics go).
2) It's helped me learn social media and SEO, which allowed me to start my own business and succeed at beating competitors who had more experience, money, etc., because they didn't know to utilize social media when marketing professional services.
3) I almost always know someone when I travel. Since blogging, every time I've traveled for work, the military, or vacation, I've been able to meet up with someone I've gotten to know online who lives near the area I've traveled. This is probably my favorite benefit of blogging.
4) It's improved my writing and has given me a creative outlet I otherwise would not have found.
That.Is.Awesome! Congratulations!
I'm a huge fan of TED, and attending, let alone speaking, a conference is on my list.
All the best!
If you want to know what your blogging has specifically done (in your own community), I think it's a lifeline to know of a parallel universe happening in your own metropolis. Listening to your thoughts and feelings and perspective on life in general is refreshing and a comfort. It helps me as a fellow human being to have another person who goes places and feels things in my Regina bubble, but someone who I have no idea would be able to recognize me. So there is that relative anonymity while having a comfort that one of the faces may be out there experiencing the world... anyway, I for one will try to get to Ted Regina and will hoot n' holla out something to the effect of "more cowbell". That will be me. Cheers and that is AWESOME.
You will be GREAT!
I wish I could go, but it's on a weekday, and you have to apply to attend. As much as I LURVE TED talks, those things kind of turned me off.
First off: WOWTHISISSOAWESOME!
Blogging has made me more aware of the words I choose to send out to the world. It causes me to think before I speak. It's a practice just like meditation or yoga and the more I do it on my "mat", the easier it is to take out into my daily life. So yes. Blogging has changed my life in a very positive way. It has introduced me to new and wonderful people and given me an awareness of my place in this world.
So exciting!
Blogging and it's crazy step-cousin, twitter, brings the world into my screen and puts me out into the world. Which is a pretty narcissistic way of looking at things, I guess, but what I mean is that writing my tiny micro-blog and reading many, many other blogs, I hear not only all kinds of ideas that are different than my own, but am also made aware of issues/problems/beauties/possibilities that I would never have encountered without the world of the interwebs. I think writing a blog has encouraged me to explore the interwebs in a way that I wouldn't do as deeply or as thoroughly as I would if I weren't writing into the ether. Of course, this exploring sometimes means it's the wee, wee hours of the evening before I surface out of a twitter-induced haze and remember to go to sleep.
Very very fabulous about Ted. Wish I lived on that side of the world & could come listen. Cheers.
oh dear lord I have a typo in my comment. that first it's should be ITS. ugh. or ugh's.
If anyone will knock this out of the park, it's you. Can't wait to see it. Go Elan!
YES!!!!! That's bloody awesome, fantastic, and thoroughly deserved. Blogging has changed my life drastically, dramatically. Huge.
Did I create my blog, or did my blog create me? I've always *been* me, of course. My blog just made me ..... more me-ified. On a Spiritual level. That's all.
XXXXX
Blogging has helped normalize me. I don't feel as weird or alone, or I feel like us weird and alone people have other weird and alone people.
Blogging has also helped me to almost always find the humor in a situation. Instead of freaking out, I take a picture and shrug: At least it'll make a good blog post.
Congrats on the TedxRegina talk. You'll be great!
!!!!!
Blogging has let me know I'm not alone.
Blogging has taught me that I have a voice, and that no one can silence me unless I let them.
That's some pretty powerful stuff.
Also, congratulations times infinity. Plus one.
WOW. Congratulations! And funny you should ask that because I just wrote (on 4/28 if you are interested) about how blogging made me more curious and more inclined to say "yes."
Oh, how much time do you have?
Blogging has done for me what nothing else could: when I turned to the internet four years ago, I had been on prescription anti depressants and in talk therapy.
But my depression persisted.
Once I began a blog, and people started to come by and read my posts and interact with me, my symptoms improved better than anything my Dr. had ever done.
She asked me why I was doing so well, and I told her: "I started a blog. I'm meeting people. I'm reading about people who have lives similar to mine, not similar to mine, but we interact. They listen to me, I hear them. There is always somewhere I can go, even at three in the morning, and feel as if I'm sharing in their live. There is intimacy, a connection. I hear them."
I share things on the internet, I relate to others on the internet, others comment on my posts and help me feel a part of something. I am honored to be part of their lives and share in their struggles, and triumphs. I have cried over life's unfairness and celebrated their joys.
Everyone thought I was depressed: turns out I just WANTED to be accepted and belong. I wanted my life validated and to not feel on the outskirts of always being judged. I was tired of keeping secrets in case no one would like all that came with me. I never was able to be myself because there was no one like myself in real life.
But no secrets haunt me now, I've told it all: and it feels like 50 pounds have been lifted off my chest. Living in The Truth is the difference. The truth told that allows my healing to come from sharing what I carried all by myself my entire life.
I took that truth that once separated me and shared it so that now it is that thing that instead connects me.
It's a risk, it feels like a set back for awhile, when you start living as who you are...but after the stormy skies clear, it really does feel like a brand new life.
Not a perfect world, but so much better than one spent hiding in my shame: where no one ever got to know me, and I had to keep myself hidden.
The freedom that comes from not always thinking how no one really knows you is one beyond words.
I have no secrets anymore and now I can get down to the business of finding out who I am.
And I have a lot to do...
I love you, Schmutzie--you have been HUGE in my life the past four years. You don't know that I read you in the middle of the night, and cry the sweet release of comforting tears that say "me, too...me too. "
So cool! Congrats to you.
I think your TED talk will be amazing.
Blogging, very simply, opened the world to me.
I am not a blogger, just a blog-reader. How has blogging changed my life? Even though we have never met, I want to tell people that I HAVE A FRIEND SPEAKING AT TED!!!!!!!! (imagine that really, really loud!!!)
Coolest thing ever. Try to drop that in every conversation you have with anyone from now on "..well, when I was giving my speech at TED." "....yeah, just like when I was speaking at TED." "I can't remember, I must have been busy speaking at TED." !!!!!
Liz
Wow! Amazing! Congratulations!
So proud of you.
Blogging has helped me find my people. It has encouraged me in so many ways. It has made me brave, because I have found that the more truth I tell, the more people like me - the real me, the flawed me, the me that I am tempted to want to hide from the world.
This is epic. Congratulations.
I don't blog as often as you do, nor do I get as many comments. However, blogging has changed the way I articulate myself.
While it used to be overly emotional ranting a while ago, today I take the time to think about what I write and say what I mean.
I've also had the pleasure of discovering blogs like yours and trying to incorporate the kind of honesty you demonstrate in my little online space as well.
Congrats on the talk :)
Congratulations, Elan. The in-law side of the family is very proud of you. We may do a bit of bragging.
FREAKING WONDERFUL! Wow. Just wow. Knock em dead.
I was a letterwriter and journaller since childhood, and blogging was really just an extension of those activities; content from letters and journals went into my blogs, though, which reached more people. Perhaps the frequent writing polished my writing voice, but I'd've been writing anyway, so maybe blogging can't be credited with that. Though it has taught me some discernment and diplomacy over the years, because I do tend to think differently about what I'm putting out there, now that I don't know exactly who it is going to or where.
One of the most heartwarming things that results from blogging is that readers who never comment, and I've no idea they're even there and do not know beyond being acquaintances or sharing the history of growing up in the same small town, will sometimes tell me at some community function that they are regular readers and they speak as if they know me intimately and care about me, which I find to be a gift of friendship that I didn't expect. Blogging has given me an army of invisible supporters.
Hey Schmutzie.
I've been away, and now I see this. It was on your bucket list to speak at TED someday, right?
Whoa.
That is just superb.
Congratulations, Schmutzie Pickles! I am over the moon for you!