The Dangerous Path of Second Guessing Your Truth

Dishonesty with your writing, and yourself, can lead to terrible decisions.

I recently published an article that explained my decision to, for all intents and purposes, pull one of my previous articles from Medium.

There were many reasons to pull this article, and I won’t go into them here.

Rather, this story is about how I started editing myself, hoping to “strike the right tone” with my audience.

At the end of the first draft of the story explaining my decision to pull a horrible piece of writing I published, I gave credit to many of the Medium members who left carefully crafted, well thought out responses and thanked them for taking the time to write their truth.

What I did not include was the time and effort that my wife also gave in helping me figure out if/when to pull the aforementioned article and how to explain not only my decision, but also the misguided thinking that led me to write it in the first place.

We had an hour+ conversation that night, and I would not have been able flesh out the ideas in my head to any level of completeness that I was able to achieve had it not been for her insight.

But I left her out of my Thank You section because I was afraid.

I was afraid that thanking my wife (who heavily disagreed with the premise of the original article) would lead people to believe that I had been kowtowed into pulling one of my own stories for fear of disappointing her.

This is absolutely not the case. While she disagreed with the conclusions of my article, she gave me great feedback from a point of view that I didn’t consider.

And she pointed out that I said, “the rich pay their fair share”, which is a completely idiotic thing to say. I’m still not sure why I wrote that since I damn sure don’t think it, but that’s all discussed in the other article.

Getting back to the point, I was afraid that if people thought I was unduly influenced by my wife, then they would overlook the real reasons for pulling the bad article and…gasp…not read my follow-up, losing me precious dollars in the process.

While there is some sarcasm in the previous paragraph, it’s also terribly true. I was worried that people would discount my writing as just a reaction to my wife being upset and stop reading my stuff.

Ain’t that something!?

The premise of that notion is bad on so many fronts.

• It discounts the validity of Amelia’s truth and her assistance with helping me find my truth.
• It insults my audience by underestimating their ability to see what is truth and what isn’t.
• It demeans myself as a both a writer and a person by not being true to myself and accurately reflecting my reality.

Besides, if someone thinks I’m nothing but an shill for my wife’s opinion by merely thanking her for the help and input she gave, then they were never going to read much of my stuff anyways.

The type of readers that I try to write for realize that spouses oftentimes have outsized influence on us because they know us best; sometimes better than we know ourselves.

So, this story is, first and foremost, a written apology and realization of my faults to my wife, Amelia.

It is also an apology to my readers, as they deserve an author who thinks the best of them and is willing to speak truth without reservation.

I will strive to do both in my future articles.

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This article is for informational purposes only, it should not be considered Financial or Legal Advice. Not all information will be accurate. Consult a financial professional before making any major financial decisions.