Getting back into the swing of things after taking a break can be harder — the longer the break, the more difficult. Especially when that thing is writing that’ll actually make eyeballs stick. Or, more eloquently, finding a story to tell — and telling it well.

As dozens, if not hundreds, of people will tell you: Medium has changed. Though they say that all the time, every year. The lack of consistency is incredibly consistent, as is the myriad of complaints and failed experiments to go along with it.

When I joined this writing platform five years ago, it felt so much more simple. It’s difficult to put into the words exactly, but the User Experience itself made the website fun.

Everything was smaller — it felt more independent, there wasn’t even a way to make money on the website. So all the writers were writing for the sake of it, for the enjoyment of the craft.

Perhaps it’s cynical to blame the allure of profit-making as the reason things don’t feel as fun — there are quite a lot of other things too. The website can feel awfully slow and bloated, which is pretty funny considering this is mainly just a bunch of text?

But if I’m being honest, everything on Medium appears to have largely stayed the same: A bunch of black and white, sans-serif words in different font weights. Maybe a pretty stock image or two to go along with those words.

It’s obvious that things have really just changed with me — and maybe you, too. There are many days where it is easier to let perfectionism get in the way of doing anything at all — rather than the carefree mindset of writing your heart out with reckless abandon. Those days just grow and grow.

Of course, I hear that little voice in my head whispering to me: If you want to write, you need something to write about — and I can’t help but agree with it.