My 2023 Journey: From Nobody to Somebody in One Year

Looking back on my first year as a part-time writer and creator.

Photo by Moritz Knöringer on Unsplash

The first three years after COVID were the same. I got laid off from my last in-office job in January 2020, and they gave me six weeks of severance pay to help me get on my feet. After asking several friends to pull strings for me with phone calls and letters, I started working for Cloud Academy at home. Cloud Academy's home office is in Switzerland, so half the company was at-home workers, and this caused each calendar year to blur into each other.

Every day, I woke up, sent the kids to school, and sat at my computer for eight hours of work. I'm a Sr. Manager of Customer Support, and my responsibilities stay mostly the same. I work tickets, answer questions, attend meetings, and run more sessions with my team, who also work from home in various countries. Even though I helped create new processes, hired a dozen new staff, and lost a few team members, I'm still sitting at my desk. The house is new, my desk has grown, and my kids are older, yet until 2023, I felt the same. But this year, I changed everything.

I've written about how and why I began The Taoist Online, which you can read here, but I want to take time to review this fantastic year. Let's start with a necessary evil: social media.

In January, I had given up most social networks except Reddit and Mastodon and rarely posted on Reddit. Mastodon, the decentralized Twitter alternative proved fun. I used it to make new friends online, learn new things about strangers, and share my blog articles. After six weeks of talking, sharing, and boosting (retweeting) for the first time, my account began to blossom. I have over 1,000 Mastodon followers, while my 17-year-old Facebook account has never gathered anything close to 1k followers.

After Mastodon's explosive growth, I began looking for a better place for my writing and remembered medium.com. Not knowing what I was doing, I created a publication, thinking it would trick the algorithm into showing my articles. To my utter shock, not only did a few other people want to write under my The Taoist Online banner, but hundreds more did. Afterward, I pivoted to creating a centralized community where we could grow together. T.T.O. accepted our 900th writer recently, which continues to expand beyond my wildest dreams.

Also, I never thought I'd earn more than a few followers on Medium. My writing was too esoteric, niche, and poorly written. Yet, in one year, my followers exploded from 0 to 8,400.

It's not a numbers game; my goal was never to become rich and famous from my writing. Soon after a few writers decided to join me on my journey, I created a Discord community for them. Discord is a chat application like Slack or Teams. Designed primarily for gamers, Discord is a great place for simple, free, community building. The Taoist Online discord is now home to 350 members, and it's a calm and relaxing place for having as many people as we do. Somedays, we don't talk at all, while others are full of laughter or struggles. The editing team and I chat about articles, upcoming ideas, or other communities we help.

Outside of Medium, I opened a YouTube channel that hosts a weekly Taoism podcast. My podcast is an area I can try harder next year. The Taoist Corner Podcast has 85 subscribers after 15 episodes, but there's so much more I could have done. For example, I need a new camera. My Blue Yeti mic is perfect, but the natural light in my window is hard to compete with when I'm using a $75 camera from some company on Amazon. This camera has served me well since COVID-19, but if I want my podcast to grow, I need my video quality to look better.

Another area of improvement is consistent writing. The first six months of 2023 were full of stories, theories, and thoughts. Still, as the organization grew and I began to branch out into new avenues, my writing fell by the wayside. I put all my effort into Christmas, my kids, buying a cat, and finishing my book.

But, with the help of

Nanie Hurley

I finished the book! It's titled "A Beginner's Guide to Taoism," and it will be online in the next few days. I'm very proud of the work Nanie and I put into formatting, editing, writing, and designing t. I intended to release it during the summer, but I couldn't stop writing! When your mind is a waterfall, building a dam is hard. With this book, I felt it would never end. I always had one or two more ideas to write, or something new would flow from my fingertips, which caused the dominoes of articles to fall.

It is interesting to look back on the year and watch dominoes fall into place, not only with articles, but with friends and connections. I wouldn't have moved to Medium without starting on Mastodon. I wouldn't have been invited to the boost nomination program without being on Medium. If I weren't invited to the boost program, T.T.O. wouldn't have had the opportunity to grow as it did. If T.T.O. failed, my follower numbers and Discord wouldn't be as alive as they are today. So many small choices from a multitude of people bring us all where we are.

I could write on and on about other events this year. For example, I ran the unofficial Medium boost nominators Slack community. I also studied under my favorite Taoist teacher, George Thompson, for three months.

Beyond the numbers, chats, and followers, it's important to remember that life can be fun. If my hobby ever felt like work, why bother? While sometimes challenging, hobbies should be for enjoyment and not a burden on yourself or your family. I will admit it's been difficult to balance the responsibilities this year brought. Even if I looked beyond my fledging writing career, my professional career has had ups and downs. I was promoted, but several layoffs have occurred, and wondering if my team and I are next is exhausting.

My kids are 15, 12, and 10, and my son has started middle school. It's only been five months, and he has been in two fights. Once, some bullies jumped him outside the gym, and the other time he was walking home. He is a blue belt in karate, and some private self-defense lessons offered at the same dojo can help him feel safer at school. I'd home-school my son if I could because the education system in Texas has been so bad lately.

As I look toward the future, I do so with pride and a smile. Success isn't guaranteed in any journey, and you can't connect the dots looking forward. Sometimes, life feels random because we can't understand the trillions of actions that led to our current circumstances. I've used this metaphor in several articles this year, but it's worth repeating.

Pretend you're in a river, and your boat has capsized, throwing you loose into the water. You are now faced with two options: swim against the current to reach the shore or allow the current to drag you downriver. In both options, you might drown, or you could survive. But allowing the river to carry you so that you feel less strife and hardship sounds more compelling.

This year, I promised myself to allow the water to carry me downriver without fighting the current. I wanted to write for myself because I knew others could relate to my journey, and I wanted to share everything I learned over my first 41 years.

In 2024, I'll begin my next journey with Project Jade. This curated professional publication isn't beholden to Medium's algorithms or secretive curation team. I'll take my chances on the broader web and see where it leads me. I'll pay for every article Project Jade accepts. There are so many more readers these talented, passionate writers can reach. The world can be remarkable and peaceful if people take the time to listen, understand, and learn from each other. The only way to reach everyone is through our words, and Project Jade can be a platform for critical ideas from hundreds of writers worldwide.

I look forward to next year with an open mind and heart. No one can know the future, and it's not up to us to control where we go. We can't prevent when emotions arise, but we can control how those emotions affect us and those around us. It's our decision and choice.

It's my path forward; no one can move my mindset unless I let them. You can feel the same way.

So, let's get going together.