Monday, November 24, 2014

What happened to my enthusiasm to blog?

"What happened to you, Jard? You used to blog a lot." Asked a once loyal blog reader of mine. I inhaled the polluted fumes of the big city... and let out a long sigh. I have some ideas but don't know how to put them into words. Hehe. When I was vigorously blogging back in 2010/2011, I had a DSLR, a desktop PC and was forever engaged in blogging related events.

I had pictures with Lisa Surihani, Fahrin Ahmad, Chef Wan, blah.. blah.. to name a few. I had movie invites, product launches invites and even food reviews to many hotels around Klang Valley (surprisingly, mostly during Ramadan month. Alhamdulillah. :P)

I even received a FREE HTC smartphone and won a Sony home entertainment theater system which costed RM3,500 from a blogging contest.

An event with fahrin Ahmad.

A Garnier event with Lisa Surihani.
Food reviews with other bloggers.
And I was even part of  one Garnier online commercial. Muahahaha! 
Nowadays, after selling my DSLR and the PC to fund my ever increasing desire to travel, my desire to blog has dissipated to almost a speck of dust. I began to decline the rewarding invites. Stopped going to blogger events and stopped blogging about them altogether. And now invitations cease to exist altogether in my email account. I recently received an email from a famous online shop in return for RM150 of online credit to shop on their site for a blogpost but was also declined. Haha. (Though the Converse shoes on their site for RM130 was highly tempting!) I always had my head wrapped around the idea of quitting my job, earn money from my blog, win lots of free gadgets, live an active social blogging life... and then probably get married and support my family.

But what happened? Why did I stop blogging actively?

For some reason all I want to do is travel, eat new food, meet new people, and "fall in love a million times". :P

I fell in love....

with this.......
Sunrise in Bromo during my first backpacking trip to Indonesia, in particularly, climbing Bromo, changed what I wanted. 

Fell in love with the idea of random trips with new people I met.
Fell in love with the idea of trying out new foods like fried grasshoppers with a local in Thailand. Haha.

Fell in love with the idea that traveling the world to visit exquisite spots is now POSSIBLE! 
I would never gain all of these spontaneous, random, exciting experiences if I stayed home blogging, attending meaningless events and joining free sponsored trips by some agents. And since traveling has taken almost most of my energy and time, so when I'm back at work, I'll be so engrossed with it. that I seldom find time to blog! As the saying goes... work hard, play harder!

Traveling in a way has taught me to be thankful that I have a career in Malaysia. It also taught me to cherish my colleagues, friends and family more. I have become more thankful and after each overseas endeavor, I would always be happy to come back home with my "new eyes" and a thousand memories.

During my blogging expeditions, I took for granted the job I had. Having at times, escaping my office to attend the events which were held during weekdays. It was an unethical behavior on my behalf and also self destructive. Many of my blogging friends, after obviously escaping their routine 8-to-5 day jobs to attend events have already took the leap of faith and become full-time bloggers. But I didn't.

I learnt blogging life is not sustainable. So is travel-blogging full time. Hehehe

I want to be close to home when my family needs me.

I want to grow old, have a sense of belonging and in the end die here.

Oh but glob-trotting the world is surely a tantalizing adventure! But why give up everything and chase a selfish dream to travel round the world? For how long? I can still travel the world without giving up anything except maybe going through some months without salary (read : unpaid leave). :)

For now.. all I need is to find my blogging ardor back as tons of traveling mementos are flooding my head.  So watch out.. the spark might come back! :P


5 comments:

nanadhoi said... [Reply]

aaahhh hensemnyaaa fahrin ahmad!
that fried grasshopper...
tak sanggup nak makan...HAHHAHA

Jard The Great said... [Reply]

@ nandhoi.... haha. aku tak sanggup nk makan lagi. rasa mau muntah. heheheh

- zuriey - said... [Reply]

welcome back.. ingat time g event sama2 dulu..huhu

Jard The Great said... [Reply]

@ zuriey... ahh.. citer lama jgn diungkit. hehehehe.

miss you guys tho!!

fitri said... [Reply]

I know exactly how this feel. To give up your "previous life" to travel. Good on you. The feeling of falling in love again and again is inexpressible. ;)