The one Book I read.. and Many that I Didn’t.. and that made all the Difference in my life!

I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. - From Robert Frost’s Poem: The Road Not Taken.

Courtesy: Unsplash. Picture by Vasilis Karkalas.

Avowal: Taking a leaf out of Robert Frost’s book!

Stories we Read on Medium …..

Nearly 80% articles on Medium are about these four facets of our lives...

1. Do this to make so much of money online… Fair enough.

2. AI does this & will do that. Good. Would agree without doubting you. Joined you all after being told by Gemini AI. Had never heard of Medium, before.

3. Mothers-in-Law are such & such… Quite the possibility…

4. Love is this... and that... may well be...

There are other types as well. Their percentage, however, is much lesser.

We are all a very wise lot. Not gullible.

I, however, am only trying to address those who might get carried away in their weaker moments.

. . . .. xxxx. . . . .

The One Book I Read!

Long time ago I read one of my most favourite books ‘Word Power Made Easy’ by Normal Lewis. Read it cover to cover…almost.

In my times these Made Easys were taboo. Those who thought of themselves as some worth (as students) they studied from ‘The Text Books’. Because accent used to be on ‘the Concepts; not the answers’. I was kind of neutral, though fairly OK at studies.

But this one was not a made easy. It was kind of a Text Book of Words.

Words. Thousands of them.

It gave answers to all the concepts…..

The ‘Whys’

The ‘Whats’

The ‘Hows’

The ‘What ifs’

The ‘If nots’…

What else concepts are about?

To that extent I was fine with it. And if others thought I was wrong, so be it. I have never really bothered regards what others thought of me. Never.

This Book required repetitive hard work to learn the contents.

It taught me quite a lot... besides words!

And, Many Books That I did Not Read

Then in my time only there came a wave of ‘How to do this….and….how to do that’. One most famous amongst boys my age was ‘How to win friends…’

Never read any of them.

Whether or not anyone benefitted, I am not aware. But the authors sold them in millions! They must surely have become pecuniarily better. Fine. They were the ones who efforted. And made their share. Fine.

It, nevertheless, firmed up the values inherited since early stages. And value of sincere hard work.

There can never be ‘shortcuts’ to success. Any field of activity..

Have continued with this little principle. With fair amount of successes. And some failures, too.

. . . . .xxxx. . . . .

The scene shifts to our times on Medium.

Have done/seen some amount of Drama in my career. Therefore, the simile!

So many of us write on making money online! In fact ‘earning’. There lies a difference! And I prefer the latter word. For it is only through honest means, not through some trickery that we can earn monies..

Our target audience is fairly smart to gauge… who is honest. And who is a trickster!

Then only they open the strings of their Virtual Purses!

In my opinion, these are good experiences shared by well meaning online entrepreneurs. We must share our experiences, till these remain true.

Honest.

So that we are able to guide our brethren properly.

However, each one of us has different backgrounds, capacities, capabilities, thought processes, repertoire of thoughts & language, and abilities to translate our thoughts onto paper (screen these days).

It well nigh boils down to just one truth.. ‘how well can we do this latter’ such that those who read us indeed get value for their ‘reads & time’.

And/or money.

If we can muster that, then we begin to build a reader/buyer base. Those who begin to like us and develop some kind of faith in us.

That takes time, patience and sincere effort.

And honesty!

Once that happens, then only earning shall come about.

If, nonetheless, anyone thought that someone had made $7000 overnight selling on Etsy, PayHip, GumroaD or Kindle or any other platform, then it is a slightly skewed conception.

We may not be knowing how much effort, how much sweat, what quality of work, what kind of timeframe they would have put in to earn those kind of Dollars.

This is true of every profession. Not only online work.

Moral of the Story: Do Not Get Dispirited

Everyone (I suppose) knows this.

But no harm in repeating just to resurrect a few drooping shoulders!

I am only reiterating to prop up the morale of those who might get discouraged/disheartened if they were not fortunate enough to earn those Dollars at the pace someone else did.

You have to continue to improve the quality of your work with each article/story/book. At the least keep it intact.

Keep patience on your side, learn more from the environment, be truthful in whatever you write, have conviction and self-confidence..

Dollars will follow. But your work must speak... first.

And.. hold your horses!

It does not happen over night.

Once, however, that happens, there is no stopping…

If only you are able to continue with same zeal and honesty!

QED!