A Bible verse about knowledge:
“It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way.” Proverbs 19:2
I am lacking knowledge, and I have missed the way.
Entirely.
Looking back, I can see how I began numerous ventures with zeal. I thought I possessed the knowledge to be a profitable success.
Until I realized that I didn’t have the knowledge. Then, I would obsess about learning as much as I could to obtain the knowledge.
And still I fell short.
Eventually, I’d give up and move on to the next venture.
What’s to learn from this? I am a perfect example of this verse.
Every opportunity begins with zeal and excitement. THIS could be what I’m here for. THIS could be my purpose.
Until it’s not.
And then I’m left trying to put the pieces back together.
All along, my family is suffering from my ineptitude. We still can’t build a house because I can’t find the means to earn enough money to afford building said house.
Let’s briefly list some of my failed ventures:
- wedding photographer
- stock market investor
- forex investor
- cryptocurrency miner and investor
- ebay reseller
- author
- youtube creator
- this blog
- I recently started a new venture with a friend creating coloring books to sell – it’s too early to tell
I spent two years researching the stock market. For a brief time, I was profitable. Then the SEC rules changed, and the entire formula that I had developed disappeared.
I then spent another year researching the forex market. Only to realize that I lacked the capital to make it worthwhile.
Then I spent another year researching cryptocurrency and building a crypto miner. Only to have Ethereum change from proof of work to proof of consensus, resulting in an inability to mine.
Ebay has been somewhat profitable, but not when you consider how much time it takes. It certainly hasn’t made an impact in our daily lives. It was supposed to be a temporary step providing the capital to fund the bigger projects, but that hasn’t materialized.
I wrote Koda’s book, Chasing Dandelions because I felt that God was inspiring me to do so. To date, I’ve sold 12 copies of the book. I thank those of you that have purchased it, but it’s hardly the reception I was hoping for.
My other books are even more pathetic.
I haven’t made any videos for YouTube in quite some time; while I still enjoy it, I don’t have enough free time to really pursue it. That, and the funds to keep it going. It could be profitable if I was consistent with it, but I lack a work space out of the elements, and I greatly dislike working in the cold and snow.
And lastly, this blog.
6 months ago I decided to focus on two niches – scripture and outdoor power equipment. Prior to that, I wrote about whatever was going on in our lives.
So it was easy to see how there was no growth. It wasn’t consistent, and the topics were too vague to gain any real readers.
By focusing my research, I developed a plan to write three blog posts a week; two on outdoor power equipment and one on scripture.
I figured that two niches would be specific enough to gain some growth over time.
And, I fully realize that for most new bloggers (even though I had been writing since 2015, I consider myself new because this was more or less a fresh start) it can take upwards of 2 years before real growth and income occur.
That being said, I thought that by now there would be some tangible sign of growth.
Only, there’s not.
I was excited to see that my readers had increased almost to 200 a month. Then I dove deeper into the analytics and realized that the vast majority of those “readers” were actually spiders crawling the web.
The reality is that this blog receives around 6 actual readers per month.
After six months, even though I publish 12 posts a month, I average 6 readers. If you’re one of them, thank you.
Again, this was hardly the reception that I was anticipating. I thought it would be a gradual growth before an exponential curve. That’s what most of the “experts” talked about.
So, either I’m doing something wrong or no one is interested in what I write about.
Regardless of the cause, the outcome has left me feeling quite dejected.
At this point, I can hardly say that I am zealous about any of my ventures. The idea of success has just about been beaten out of me.
Perhaps I am still lacking knowledge, but for as much time as I spend researching, I can’t put my finger on where I’m lacking.
At this point, all I can say with certainty is that I have missed the way. It would just be so much easier if I knew what the way was.
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