Why I Left Writing for 5 Months

Explaining where I went and why I'm coming back.

If you read my previous articles, you’ll notice it’s been several months since my last story or podcast episode. I left so suddenly that a few of my online writing friends thought I had died! But fear not! I’m safe and sound at home with my family - enjoying life and living each day the best I can. Today, I want to reflect on my time away and a few lessons I’ve learned.

Why Did I Leave?

I left because I wanted a break from the drama. What drama, you ask? The drama of editing, answering questions from writers and readers, debating with editors about rules and policies, and running an external website (Project Jade) and online publication. Most of all, however, is the Medium Boost nomination program.

I spent nearly one year as an active and vocal member of the Boost Nominator program. I’ve had private video calls with not only major players in the program but also the Medium staff who run it. I also created and ran the unofficial Slack community for all the boost nommers we could gather together. After nearly 18 months, there is terribly little integration with Medium.com and the boost program, and keeping track of my own spreadsheet for records and payments and discovering trends was exhausting. You can’t imagine the work it took to maintain everything at once. Oh, and did I mention that none of this is my full-time job? I’m a husband, father of three, and a sr. customer support manager and my full-time job. I was always afraid of burnout, but I thought I was good.

I put together a strong team of editors and made several friends out of fellow writers and community members. For a long time, over a year, it was amazing! The Taoist Online publication made a name for itself, and my payments grew beyond anything I could have ever thought possible. However, as time passed, I noticed I didn’t want to open Medium or my email. I didn’t want to run the rat race of responding to comments, clicking that hand 50 times per article, or reading dozens of articles a day to find that diamond in the rough only to be told it was actually a lump of coal by the silent voice behind boost rejections. I’ve offered suggestions to improve the program and allow it to scale simultaneously, but admittedly, not all of my ideas are gold nuggets. Still, I hoped my feeling of dread would subside after a week or two offline.

The longer I stayed away, the more I didn’t want to return.

So, I told my team I was taking a long hiatus for mental health. I clearly wasn’t in the right mindset to edit articles regarding personal beliefs if I couldn’t stomach the idea of placing ideas on the page.

What Did I Do in the Meantime?

I posted my last article at the end of March, and after wrapping up the school year for my kids, it was vacation time! My mom kept my kids off and on for a few weeks at a time, and I spent two weeks there, too. We took a family trip to Austin, TX, for a week and later took a second trip to the beaches of Galveston, TX. I think I’m more tan than I’ve been in years! And considering this photo still makes me look exceptionally pale, imagine what I looked like in May.

I even went to my first Blink-182 concert with my wife!

But what about my Taoism practice?

It’s been light on learning and large on life. There’s more to studying books and attempting to translate modern Mandarin into English. In fact, my old teacher, George Thompson, once told me that if you’re not going out into the world to live, then are you living at all? We can’t learn about our body without looking at it. Therefore, we can’t be off and from this world yet try to sit in our boxes of wood, brick, steel, and glass all day. Our bodies evolved over millions of years to run and absorb the sun’s rays, not to sit behind this computer or stare into bright, handheld electronic slabs.

What good is knowledge without practice?

So, in that regard, I’ve done well! The sun truly makes you feel better when you don’t hide from it constantly, and my kids’ laughter is the best medicine a father could ask for. Often, we are caught in this rat race of attempting to be “good” at our faith and bogged down when we “fail.” How can you fail at your own beliefs? After all, they are yours and yours alone. No one, without torture or brainwashing, can force you to believe or forget.

I am me. And I choose to be the best me I can be every day.

I have often written about the yin-yang and its meaning. I’ve even written about how I discovered it as a child and its appearance throughout my life. One of my big takeaways is that everything comes in cycles - waves of an ocean, daylight and darkness, creation and death. You can’t always have pleasant days, and you can’t be happy every single day of your life. Living through stress, failure, and loss doesn’t mean you’re being punished for your mistakes or that you somehow deserve those situations. No, quite the opposite. These hard times are as natural as the Sun following the rain or the snow melting into water.

It’s ok to leave sometimes. That doesn’t mean you are free from the consequences of your actions, but your mental and physical health matters, too.

The Future is Bright

I can’t imagine what will happen over the next 12 months, but I know I’m back and working hard. The Taoist Corner podcast is still online, but I won’t be making any new episodes for a while. That project was much bigger than I had anticipated, and carving out time to record an hour-long show with 3 kids running behind me was becoming increasingly difficult. I might be able to find time for an episode here and there. In the meantime, if you ever have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment or shoot me a private message either here or on my Discord server. I’m glad to be back, and I can’t wait to share more of my journey with you!