I spent many hours writing two posts this week.
The first told the story of how I stopped fearing criminals and mentally ill people. The second post drew a parallel between the concept of emotional capital in management and building up my own emotional capital to deal with certain people in my life.
At least, that’s what I thought these two posts would be about.
As often happens, what I planned to write transformed into something else entirely as I wrote. My thoughts collide, veer off in different directions and eventually coalesce as I write and edit.
When I finish my first draft, I’ll do a quick review and post it, if it feels complete. That happens 75% of the time. After all, I’m writing blog posts, not articles for The NY Times.
The other 25% of the time, my posts don’t feel right. I’ll save my draft and shut down my laptop. If I’m working through an issue, I’ll think about it for the next few days. Other times, I may not actively think about the draft at all until I sit to write again and open it back up for editing.
For these two latest posts, one I thought about a lot. The other, I thought nothing of until I sat down to finish it today.
I deleted both of them.
I probably spent 4 hours writing these posts and another 6 hours thinking about them. From an outside perspective, seems like a waste of time.
From my perspective, it’s the opposite.
The first I deleted because it ended up being a sensationalized depiction of the mentally ill and criminal people I had tried to help when I was doing volunteer work. It was gossip about the worst of the people I had known.
The second I deleted because the comparison I was trying to make was tortured at best. All I was actually doing was whining and reiterating complaints I had written about in previous posts.
I felt like neither post would add any value for me or my readers. They made me feel snarky and small minded.
By doing the writing, I was able to work out my thoughts and feelings on both subjects. Neither issue is swirling around it my head anymore. I don’t have to say anything to anyone. I don’t have apologize for being a a$$hole. I don’t have to take any action to correct myself or others.
When I was younger, I remember many people said they kept a diary for exactly this purpose. I tried to do it back then and never got beyond a few days of logging that day’s activities.
I used to think, I’d never put my deepest darkest secrets and innermost thoughts in a diary because if someone got ahold of it, they could use it against me.
Now, I write about my failures and foibles on a public blog in the hopes that they might help or amuse someone (even if that someone is only me).
Except when I delete them instead.