A comedian loves his audience. He wants to make them laugh. For this reason, he is also afraid of them. If they’re displeased by, or worse—indifferent to—his routine, he may second guess himself. He might not just change his approach; he might take fewer risks. He knows that when that happens, he’s doomed.

I remember seeing a comedian explain this in a video clip—one I’ve long since misplaced—and it stands out to me. I could relate. In fact, I used to only write articles I thought people wanted to read, and not what I actually wanted to read. For example, I started off writing productivity articles because the topic was interesting to me. I built momentum in this topic, eventually even getting a job writing for Lifehacker. I thought the smarter thing to do was to stay with productivity. Meeting this market worked in theory, not in practice. It squashed the fun out of writing. I almost stopped writing altogether. 

Writing this blog is fun for me, for sure. It’s intended to be more than that though. I write these words. They mean something when you read them. “The work is never meant to exist in a vacuum: whether it’s receiving a vaccine or being moved by a painting, it is the audience that completes the picture,” Rachel Sussman writes. 

Learning to navigate this tension—the love, the desire to please, the courage it takes to show up as you, the need for commercial results—is important. It takes time.