I realized today that I’ve been blogging a while now. I’ve written a lot of different types of posts. Introspective, raw, terrified posts that have barred my innermost thoughts and fears to whoever cared to read them. Strategic, resource-filled posts, every word and link crafted to drive a specific response and that still drive traffic wildly to my site today. List posts, short posts, long posts. Quoted posts, lost posts, favorite posts, embarrassing posts.

I’ve gone for months writing about whatever popped into mind, and months following specific formulas. Each way has worked surprisingly well.

I had a minutia of life blog where I shared my thoughts on music, life, roomates, and more with friends and only a few strangers who became friends. I have a loosely defined blog that meandered from career to productivity to grad school to social media and beyond. I have a niche-focused, concept-driven blog that got the attention of people I never dreamed would notice.

In the five or so years I’ve been blogging, my writing and subject matter has grown and matured. My audience has expanded, and my reach has broadened. The platform has changed, and with it, so many other things.

But one that has remained the same is that when I blog, my best writing is always when I am curious, exploring, working at making sense of whatever world it is I’m writing about.

It’s easy, when you’ve been at it a while, when you’ve learned what works for you, when your ideas are so big you can barely contain them to a page before they escape into the blue, to lose this curiosity.

But it’s a powerful thing. And not only because of where it lets you go with what you write.

It’s powerful because of what it does for you. Because it gives you permission to be inspired from anything in the world surrounding you. Babies, lawns, fear, music, anything.

Embrace your own curiosity. Let it lead you wherever it wants, into wild places, under beds, through windows, into bright, new corners, to better, deeper, broader thoughts, posts, dreams.