"No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world." – John Keating

This quote of Robin Williams' character in the movie Dead Poets Society seems to capture a bit of the hope of every blogger. I think we are driven by the desire to impact the world, even in some little way.

We look for evidence of our impact in our subscriber list, or in our Twitter retweets or favorites count, or in our Facebook likes. We set up our Disqus comment section in the hope that someone will say something about anything we wrote. We connect Google Analytics to our little blog to see if anybody accidentally stopped by. We want some confirmation that our ideas, our words, matter.

This past week one of our Silvrbackers hit the jackpot as far as evidence with the blog ringing up some 10,000 sessions in single day. Congrats, Silvrbacker!

But for most of us, there is very little evidence to grab onto. This is especially true during the early stages of our blog's life. It is easier to believe when we see evidence than it is to keep writing without seeing. We want to believe that our words can change the world, but in the face of no evidence it is difficult to persist. Many quit after just a couple of posts.

Somehow we need to find the touch stone that powers our writing, even when no one is reading it. We need to find our own eternal spring that will fuel our imagination when there is nothing in the data to encourage us. And we need to add to that the discipline to work the words into better form, a stronger argument, a more potent message. It takes work, sometimes lots of it.

In the end, if our final work does not move us, than it may prove difficult to move someone else. Here's to our words, our ideas.... they do matter.