DAMMIT!  I had done it again!

I went on an epic vacation with my family and never posted about it on my blog. Years ago I used to diligently post everything that happened to me, and you know what’s awesome about that?

 It’s like I had a digital brain to remember my whole life.

Quick question for you:  What did you do in May of 2006?? If you ask me that question, I would have no idea what happened 8 years ago.

BUT…..I have a secret weapon: My blog.

I can click the May 2006 category and instantly see that I was working on a business called FacebookProfile, I had $30,132 in the bank, and I illegally crashed the World Conference of Information Technology in Austin, TX. and got to meet Michael Dell and the Prime Minister of Malaysia.

Since I saw those events, my entire life in that era came flooding back to memory. Basically I reclaimed those events in my life thanks to my blog!

So if my blog is so important, then why haven’t I been diligently posting as much anymore…and then getting angry at myself about it?

It’s because of the rise of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other platforms. Basically these platforms let you “blog” very quickly by posting stuff and getting instant feedback.  For example, one of my family friends posted this little updated to Facebook from our houseboating trip while we were still on the trip:

Now everyone knows we went on this trip, liked it, commented on it, and saw a cool picture.  Basically 80% of the point came across with that ONE picture and caption that took 20 seconds to post. So when I got back home, there was little motivation for me to format pics for my blog, write about the trip, and describe all the crazy stuff that happened.

BUT HERE’S THE HUGE PROBLEM:

Several months later, I’m super bummed I barely remember anything about that trip.  I forgot about the time we had to call the coast guard, I forgot about the raging fire we built and took pictures by, I forgot about our 30 mile speed-boat drive to the Rainbow Bridge Arch.

 ALL MY MEMORIES WERE GONE!!!

Because I didn’t take an hour to document this on my blog, all I have is that single picture from a Facebook post. What happens if I start moving away from Facebook or if something new comes out that replaces it?

All my memories will be gone because that platform has changed. I’ve been on Friendster, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, AOL, Prodigy, Orkut, Bebo etc etc etc……all of them go by the wayside at some point. The ONE platform that has stayed constant over the last ten years has been my personal blog.

 It is the single most valuable store of knowledge I have since it acts as a digital brain for me.

Now I’ll eventually start to forget lots of details of that boat trip……but I’ll NEVER forget the time when I *ahem* supposedly *ahem* went to Cuba for my 30th birthday. I did an awesome job at documenting the whole trip with pictures, text, described “hypothetically” getting into Cuba, and even made a video compilation that took me a few days of editing. ( http://www.nevblog.com/cuba/ )

In the end I’ll forever remember that Cuba experience in a much more complete way because I took some time to properly make a blog post which preserves my memory (aka my life).  http://www.nevblog.com/cuba/

So 10 years from now, which would you rather have for your memory:

A Tweet you’ll never see again??

Like this:

A single Facebook post you have to find somewhere in your photos??

Like this:

 Or a proper blog post you can share with everyone that..

• answers questions

• tells your experience

• shares your photos

• shares your videos

• gets you SEO traffic

• gets shares

• gets commented on

• gets you more email subscribers

• preserves your memory forever

• gets you out there and have more people know of you

• (basically a helluva lot of good stuff):

So keep up that blog!  

It’ll preserve your entire life for you.  

Sincerely,

Neville Medhora