If Only

I’ve been trying to find a modern, free RSS reader so that I could organize and stay up to date with all the blogs I occasionally come across and then promptly forget. 

If only I could curate my own algorithm of web sources for my myriad interests. 

The search for a good RSS reader hasn’t been easy. RSS readers, and the RSS feeds that power them, went out of fashion more than a decade ago. What replaced them was mostly social media and email newsletters. These are alternatives I could use, sure, but I was so excited about having all of my favorite blogs in a place that wasn’t my inbox. 

But the one RSS feed I tried was only populated by a blogger who’s newsletter I already subscribed to. From the rest, it was crickets. It was a powerful reminder that it’s easy to say “If only the world worked this way…” and not as easy to accept that things are the way they are.

And though my experience was technology related, this maxim applies to so many areas of life.