Words that wait

Struggling with low engagement? Not all words are on the same timeline.

I was desperate.

In a frantic search for a solution to soothe my screaming infant, I flicked the screen. Colic. I remember the inhale filling my lungs properly for the first time in weeks. There in the darkness, I knew I would make it.

You, the author, had formed a bridge through time.

Your words had been written years before. Those words, built on distant experiences, travelled from the past to meet me. I’m sure the baby in the article is a grown child now, a life full of new challenges. I don’t know who you are, the person who helped me breathe. And you don’t know I exist.

You’ll never get a like or comment from me. You’ll never feel the algorithm’s dopamine buzz.

But, I hope you know your words matter.

I hope you didn’t feel disappointed when you shared.

And, most of all, I hope you know your experiences are travelling through time.

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Behind every piece of writing today lurks a number: views, likes, and shares. These metrics cast long shadows over our stories, making us hesitate before sharing. When engagement fades after days or weeks (if it even starts), it's easy to question whether our words matter.

But, we need to change how we look at the impact of our writing. We must remember that connection isn't always immediate and not everything can be measured in real-time analytics.

Max Porter’s Grief Is the Thing with Feathers is a bridge I’ve gifted many times. His visceral descriptions of grief—clawing at emptiness, trying to make it tangible—soothed me in ways I couldn’t make sense of.

“I missed her so much that I wanted to build a hundred-foot memorial to her with my bare hands. The whole city is missing her,” Porter writes.

I found these words almost a decade after he wrote them. I needed them because they said everything I couldn’t. They had been waiting for me. Waiting to add a voice to the invisible, destructive feeling of grief.

The idea of writing as a bridge through time isn’t new. Cave paintings spoke to people across 30,000 years. Ancient texts like the Bible or Bhagavad Gita still offer wisdom today. Indigenous stories carry knowledge across generations.

In Oslo, the Future Library grows a forest of 1,000 trees, destined to become the pages of books sealed until 2114. Authors like Margaret Atwood and David Mitchell are writing for readers they’ll never meet, trusting their words will resonate a century from now.

Our words have longer lives than our experiences.

Whether it’s a perspective on grief, the midnight struggles of a new parent, or a guide for young leaders, your words carry meaning. Trust that they will find their reader when they’re needed most.