Here We Are turns 4 today! In thinking about my experiences in blogging over the last four years, I realize I've learned the most about life. The technical stuff that comes with blogging, like social networking or recording radio shows is just a bunch of wires, buttons, and digital imagery that connects us. While these connections must exist to blog, the relationships that are fostered, discovered, and stretched, happen between people, not machines. 

In choosing this picture, it hit me that the blogging environment is a lot like a fishbowl. If you are inside, you are always looking out for answers and connections, and if you are outside, you are always looking in for the same. No matter the topic, if you are a regular reader to HWA, you know that I share the lessons that resonate most with me in hopes of helping you; hence the better, brighter, easier motto.

Here are 10 important life lessons learned directly or indirectly since launching HWA in October 2008: 

1. Finding your "voice" only happens by trusting yourself to speak up

2. Taking a chance is always good no matter how it turns out

3. Being a supportive cheerleader for others comes back in positive ways (even when you least expect it)

4. When you put your name on something, you must be prepared to back it up

5. There are ideas everywhere, it's a matter of seeing their potential to become something valuable

6. Sparking creativity must be seized upon in that moment for its purest message to emerge

7. You can't please everyone all the time so focus on the people who support you, wish the others well but let go

8. People will only do what they really want to do

9. Bonded friendships happen through shared experiences

10. There isn't enough time to do everything, so do what you can and do it well; quality always wins over quantity.

I look forward to sharing the fifth year of HWA with you. Thank you for your support, emails, follows, likes, shares, comments, listens, and page visits. They all help me to know I'm on the right track. ~ Luci