The words you are about to read to were born out of, “Hey Google, remind me tomorrow to publish something.” As you can tell, I am bursting with inspired ideas ready to be shared. Nothing says “I’ve got a well-formed literary plan” like setting a calendar event with no clear time or topic. ‘Tomorrow’ was also the previous Saturday.

And, if you’ve been following the notes I sporadically leave on some socials, then you’d know I had considered writing something last weekend before ultimately deciding to do nothing. I consider it a Win, generally. The less I feel required to post something to avoid “missing out” on my random chance of exponential follower growth, the more I gain in time, energy, and agency.

You see, I’m now well over halfway through my 2026 goal of pursuing less ritualistic habits to intentionally live a less rigorous life, and thus feel freer in the process. This was only necessary after stacking 2025 with a litany of ambitious daily targets that’d have me constantly busy: 13,000 average steps, 30 minutes of Duolingo, 1 hour of reading in the morning, 1 journal entry per night, and other quantified challenges. I wouldn’t take it back nor would I force myself into it again. The point was to understand which habits aligned most to my identities that I’d naturally want to continue while leaving the rest to merely be occasionally enjoyable activities.

It was also around this time last August that I started to accept that Substack’s unstated promise of riches wasn’t all it cracked up to be. Like many, I wasn’t seeing the “success” I was told would be easy if only I’d post 3 new Notes per day, 2 articles a week, and continually drop comments into others’ newsletter to entice them to come check out my thing. It’s never much fun to check an app throughout the day to actively stay engaged with the algorithm in hopes of it bestowing a monetary blessing. I have always been a writer of and on various mediums, but Substack’s front door was adorned with dollar signs thanks to its 35M+ user base of potentially paying readers. Perhaps this would bring my big break! I could be a Writer with a capital ‘W’; confident and capable of quitting his day job to invest myself into writing fully. Oh, wouldn’t that be the dream? Maybe even squeeze a self-published book or two from it.  

Substack provided the payment platform, community, and content delivery systems, so if I could just convince an audience to back me, then before long I’d be living on easy street; nevermind how many nights I’d waste tapping and scrolling. Pull the pokie machine arm, watch the gold dials spin, and cross your fingers for a hefty return. Eventually, I was no longer willing to sacrifice my time only for a slim chance of my digital works landing.

Chance… that is the key word of interest. Unlike the field of dreams, just because you’ve built it, does not mean they will come [waving wads of money for the taking]. I imagine there’s hundreds of Substack accounts that go dormant each day after not receiving the explosive external validation they were expecting. 

It’s tough, I know; because if you you don’t play, you don’t have a chance of getting. But, you first need to make sure that it’s a game you want to be entering.

Say that earning extra pocket money was my #1 goal. If that were true, then going about it through blogging would be downright silly. There are so many more avenues for netting an additional $5 or $10 a month that aren’t primarily dependent on the spontaneous generousity of a faceless internet fanbase.

I’ll give you two examples to show what I mean.

Starting tomorrow, I could spend one hour a night fervently writing new articles via Substack in hopes of snagging (or nagging) new followers who feel moved enough to send me $5 on a recurring basis. Alternatively, I could spend a few minutes per night applying for the latest user and market research opportunities and almost guarantee that I’d earn $5 a couple of times a month for completing short online tasks or surveys. After a year of occasionally participating in these studies from the comfort of my couch, I’d have about $120 in my pocket (12mo × 2 surveys × $5 payout for each) — not to mention the hundred hours otherwise saved from trying to build a social media following. I could even kick it up a notch by bringing index fund investments into the equation to have that $120 working for me without having to do anything.  

Knowing this is possible right now, then why am I still sitting here typing? 

That’s because it wasn’t always about the money. When I get caught in that short-sighted trap is often when I’m seeking an escape from my 9–5 obligations. It’s easy to forget that we once did things just to do them, and weren’t always so obsessed with turning our hobbies into an income. 

Maybe I don’t want to write anything today after all — which makes sense given I wrote those last words three days ago before yet again stopping. Time spent on our craft is invisible when the only proof is the finished product.

There’s a chance that I’ve made no sense in anything I’ve said here, but I won’t likely find out because I had long ago turned off the comments.