My five reasons for starting a blog in 2025.

First, here is a little backstory that has led me here.

As of January 3rd, 2025, I am formally disabled and can not work.

Why, as you might ask, am I disabled? I have stage 4 metastatic colon cancer that has spread to my liver.

The side effects of chemo leave me unable to work a full-time position, mostly due to fatigue, not to share the more personal health issues that are also in the way.

In a perfect world, I may be able to re-enter the workforce full-time sometime in 2027 or 2028, but there are many hurdles I need to clear before that can happen.

My five reasons for starting a blog in 2025.

  1.  Show I have self-discipline
    I plan to reenter the workforce sometime in the future; 3, 5, or 8 years from now, I will conquer cancer. I want to have something to show for this time. The downside to not having a boss is that you must be self-motivated to succeed. Success for me in this endeavour is to show my future boss I have not lost the ability to wake up and perform every day that I can, even while fighting cancer. I know I have to give myself time to fight cancer, so this may not be a daily or even weekly ritual, depending on my health situation that day and that week, but I want to be able to show a body of work that shows personal progress over the years.
  2. Improve my writing skills
    Writing a blog post or two each week will have an amazing effect on my writing skills. It’s like with all skills – the more I do it, the better I will get at it. I look forward to going back and looking at some of the blog posts I will have written in 2015; I know I will cringe – yet at the time, at the moment I wrote them, I know I will think they were great! This stark comparison will clarify how much I will have grown as a writer over these years.
  3. Gives me a creative outlet
    It’s a bit cliché, I’ll grant you – but it still holds. Blogging will give me a creative outlet to share my thoughts, ideas and passions. It’s like having my own magazine, where I am both the writer and the editor. I can decide what goes into my online magazine, write all the articles, and take all the pictures.

  4. Joining a community
    I plan to write about taking pictures in Toronto. In doing so, I want to interact with other photographers in Toronto and share my voyage of discovery with them, make new friends, grow a network of like-minded people, and be part of a community where I can share this part of my life.
  5. Make a difference
    I want to lead by example; I have cancer, but cancer does not have me. I want to be an inspiration on how not just to survive cancer but to thrive in the conquering of cancer. No one knows how much time they have in this world, but I want all to say when they speak of me when my time has passed: Paul lived his life well and did not waste one breath.

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