Yesterday I saw that I have 33 000 answer views on German Quora.
For the last six weeks, I answered daily at least one question.
62 answers. 33 000 answer views. It is insane.
I just got how insane it is during the last days when I spent my time with less work and more with thinking and reflecting.
Now I am writing again. For you. For me. For the whole wide world – the world wide web.
33 000 answer views.
The Ruhrstadion, the stadium of my hometown football club VFL Bochum, has 27 599 seats.
Obviously, 33 000 views do not mean that 33 000 people individuals read my text.
But anyway, to me the numbers show the craziness of the internet.
I am writing on Quora for a few weeks and reach a filled stadium?
I am stunned.
I am overwhelmed.Somehow this all goes to quick for me.
I want to have views on my writings.
I feel deep love for every single one who ever read a single word.
The 33 000 views. 33 000 people. Man, that is just crazy.
I am just a little boy from Bochum who went out to live his dreams in Barcelona.
A little boy from Bochum who is now living his dreams in Barcelona and following his aspirations to become a writer.
33 000 views?
That kind of feels like success. The first success I see in numbers.
During the last days, I was reading “Ego is the Enemy – The fight to master our greatest opponent” from Ryan Holiday.
Ryan Holiday is a writer and author I look up to, a writer I admire.
He is in his late twenties and already wrote several Bestsellers. He lives on a farm in Austin, Texas, isolated from the world, writing his books.
Ego is the Enemy.
A lesson I am learning while tasting the first success in writing.
All those views, all the words I wrote in the last six months.
Those views overwhelm me while they make me hungry for more.
They show me that I am not insane thinking that I one day will make a living as a writer.
During the last weeks, I went fast. Very fast. I had to. I felt pressure, financial pressure.
Writing was my way to cope with all the stuff I was going through – in the last weeks. It is my way to cope with all what happened in my life. The good, the bad, the ugly.
I really worked and wrote a lot.
Maybe I should go a bit slower?
I don’t know.
What I know is: the internet is a crazy place.
Voltaire said:
With great power comes great responsibility.
(Yeah, I got that quote from watching Spiderman.)
Within a few weeks writing on the right platform, I reached a lot of people.
Reaching a lot of people is powerful. They take their time, their most precious thing. I highly, highly appreciate that!
I give my best to write as clear, as uncomplicated and as good as I can.
I write to give you value. I write so that you do not regret the time you put in.
So please tell me if you like a text. Then I can go more in that direction.
And first and foremost. Criticize my text, tell me which text you don’t like. So that I can learn from your criticism.
With great power comes great responsibility told Peter Parker’s uncle according to his superpowers.
Do I think that I have a superpower?
If I have one than it is the ability to see details others don’t see and transform them into words.
I know that my words have power. The power to move people. To make people cry. Sometimes they make me cry as I write them as I live certain moments again, and let go things that I can´t speak about, but which through writing can leave my soul and go out to the world.
Every human has superpowers.
But they don’t emerge right away. Superpowers start with hidden talents, with something we like. It just turns into a superpower if we daily work on it.
Look at all the movies that made you think, that made you cry. A piece of art that moved you. A book, a text, a sentence or quote that touched your soul. Very probably it was not the first piece of art, the first movie, the first song, the first text the artist produced.
Your superpower emerges when you daily work on it.
Creating something that lets people think about themselves, about others, that’s what I am trying daily.
Sometimes I fail.
Sometimes I do quite good.
The thing I know:
Every day I get better.
It is just the beginning but I feel my superpower emerging.
Fueled by the love, I feel for my family, for my hometown, for Barcelona, my city.
Fueled by the love for my friends.
Fueled by the love for strangers.
Fueled by the love for an artist who did leave the tag of love at my house. (The picture of that post is exactly that. The other day I was walking home from the gym and found that piece of art spreading literally love, on my building’s wall.)
Peace, love, and positivity as the rapper Logic put it.
Find out what your superpower is. Work on it.
And spread this message through using your superpower.
Much LOVE. Jan.
