I’m feeling a bit sentimental as I write this blog about not writing for SEO anymore. I can still feel the mechanical habits of using the right keywords and hooks pulling at the corners of my mind. I am asking if it would be worth it to not just put in all those hyperlinks to my products and services, you know, just to get a bit of traffic to my stuff. Yet, there’s a part of the journey I am experiencing now that requires me to be as unfiltered as possible. I may not lay my soul bare on this blogpost but I will share whatever I can to speak life, truth, joy, peace and prosperity to whoever may read it, even if it’s the one reader left after I flushed my site of all the crazy hackers who have been all over it for a while.

So, here goes…

What’s that thing I have always wanted to do with my life and my time?

Today, I looked up youth centres where I could volunteer and serve or teach. I have spent a little over a decade working my ass off in housing and research, I even got a PhD along the way. I have always felt like I could be a great mentor. Not that I haven’t done that for a long time. However, I think I have mostly done it from a space where I was afraid to step out into the spotlight fully, just as myself. Not as the person I thought the whole world wanted me to be, or the image that life had foisted on me. I have never really gotten the opportunity I have pursued, the way I have always thought it would come. Never got that fat paycheck for lecturing in filled classrooms. I have never stopped applying for lecturing roles, but I have had to, painfully, watch some of those roles filled by people I felt I could do better than. Yet, whose call is it? What if they were destined to connect with those young people in ways I was not designed to? Instead, I have taught through my platforms and created room for others to grow. I have been the wind to some young people’s wings outside of the traditional classroom. The biggest loss for me has not just been the loss of not getting those roles, it’s the loss of not truly figuring out tangibly how much I have been able to help make the world a better place.

The reason I wanted to teach was because a teacher raised me, and I watched how much it could mean for someone who had no one to look after them to have someone who cared. Teaching almost felt like another form of parenting, definitely not the same as being a full-time parent. However, it came with a burden to care or not to care. You could easily do it just because you have no better job, because it paid some or all of your bills, or because you want to end the pain and suffering of at least one child.

Humans suffer every day, and part of that suffering is not knowing, not having answers. Today is one of those days when I feel like I am lost, I am one of those students, and I have no answers and very little direction. I know that I have got a lot of work waiting for me after I hit publish on this blog post, but I feel like a boat without an anchor. If I were to find my anchor again, maybe I would write about it. I just wanted to share this with someone who is also having a terrible time of life and living. You are not alone, and it’s always going to work out somehow. You might end up far worse before things get better, but I assure you that genuine connections, teachers, and leaders will continue to give to your growth. More importantly, find a way to give even in your own struggles. There’s nothing more therapeutic than giving of the little you have. It is a strong reminder that you are not down and out. Stay alive and keep pushing.

I want to leave you with a thought about your motivations and what matters to you. My motivation for this blog has very little to do with monetization and all the other business gimmicks we write about here. It was something sitting heavy on me that pushed me to write this, and I hope that it helps someone out there with their struggles. In my years of working in the content development space, I think a lot of us have truly lost the plot to monetization. AI has made it even worse now. We are all just churning out “fast-food” content that’s bloated with useless fat and no real substance. My challenge to you is this: your motivations should find ways to tie into lives. If you are going to write a book, publish a course, sell content, or create anything for sale, make sure it feeds your soul just as much as it feeds your pocket. I am not all about going hungry because you want to be humanitarian. I am still rooted in the reality that businesses must be built for profit. However, I think everyone deserves to find out that people really care about them and what they stand for. So, whatever you decide to create or bring into this world, ask yourself if it truly speaks to a need or if it’s all about the algorithm, keywords, and social media buzz.

Hopefully, I will stop writing for SEO more often. If you happen to stumble on this blog of mine and you want to share it with someone, please do. I also need a lot more friends, followers, and email subscribers so I don’t die of starvation (I’m kidding). For now, I am cutting back on social media to review my approach to connecting with people. I hope to stay connected with you here. Cheers!