This month Andy Leonard (b/t) wants to know why we do what we do. Funnily enough, this is something I think about on a fairly regular basis. Like most people, I have a lot of reasons for doing things, but for me, most of them come down to one thing.

I provide for my family.

Now, I should point out that my wife makes a good living and my MIL contributes her fair share and then some (my ILs live with us). In the end though, in our family, I’m the primary provider. That means I can’t afford to not have a job right? Now I’ve talked about this before, but a while back my company was going through a lot of changes and that made me rather nervous. And so I quite literally thought I’m pretty sure I’ll have a job for the next few years, but I’m not sure what will happen after that. What can I do to make it easier to find a new job if things go south in say 3 years. Educating myself is of course always important but I decided that even more important than that was showing off what I can do. Hence this blog. Over time I realized there were a lot of great benefits and a lot of great reasons to blog, speak, answer questions online, etc. All of these are among my whys.

• I learn more by teaching.
• A blog is a great reference for things you learned but may have forgotten.
• It’s also a great place to store queries you’ve written as well as links to stuff other people have written.
• Teaching others is a real rush.
• I’ve made some amazing friends.
• Writting (or coding) something so that others can understand/use it forces me to think things through better.
• To be fair, in the end, I enjoy it.

You’ll notice that awards (even being an MS MVP) are not on the list. They are wonderful, and I love having them, but they aren’t why I do anything. That said, they do help with my primary reason for what I do.

I provide for my family.