I will know I have finally found my chill the day I don't rush home at the sight of a typo.
Perfectionism has been a really big challenge to overcome. I used to get panic attacks over this nonsense - because it was ingrained in me as a kid and young adult* that I wasn't allowed to make mistakes. They'd be used against me even years later. They were why I failed.
Now I know the world won't end if there's an apostrophe where it shouldn't be.
In theory. When stress levels are lower all around. 🙃
@MLClark
I feel ya on this. ❤️
My .02: if the message is 90-100% accurate, it ain't my fault they don't understand the concept of context clues 🤷♀️
With the underfunded state of my news media outlet right now, I have to be doing due diligence on every level of proofing for articles with a LOT of key components: is everything sourced that needs to be sourced? Have all the names and numbers been checked? Are the sources the most robust one can find? AND check for typos that for some reason the spell-check isn't picking up.
Meanwhile, in my volunteer capacity for SFWA? At least 3-4 reads on every wee blog post we accept! 😂
So - my attention is definitely focused more these days on getting my sources where they need to be, and checking names and numbers. I still read my work MANY MANY times before sending it up for publication, but one needs to take a break between editing for content and proofing for tiny errors--which I don't do as often as I need to.
(And for which I'm definitely not get compensated enough - but at this point, it's just a matter of personal integrity around work with my name.)
HELL YES.
I've always been a language descriptivist - and I strongly feel that anyone who comes out of an English degree as a prescriptivist has missed the damned point.
Language holds our history and our diversity. It's supposed to be studied for what variation teaches us about ourselves - not to be wielded as a classist weapon against those who don't subscribe to the same dictionary and school of rhetoric.
In my book, you've done your English major DAMNED proud.
:)
My policy is this: If the typo (or in my case, error) is really, really, ugly, I delete and redraft. Everything else stays. It's a much better way to live.
Good policy. :)
Here's to better living, my friend!
@MLClark I can relate to this.
Thanks for sharing, Matt.
I wish you great peace of mind, and the knowledge that your worth as a human isn't tied up in always getting it right. 🤗 Where's the fun in a world of crackpots who are all cracked in exactly the same way?
@MLClark Perfectionism is unachievable.
I recall reading quite some time ago, about rug makers who purposely add in a "mistake" to their rugs because only god can make perfection.
Giving that some thought, all I could think was how arrogant are those guys who think they can make a perfect rug to begin with?
Anyhow, you'll be okay, even if you put a comma in the wrong place or write "compliment" instead of "complement."
That's exactly it.
I hate how much this was ingrained in me. I wish I'd been raised in an environment where making errors was safe, because it's a real shame to have to waste time (over and over and over again) unlearning the habituated response, when there are plenty of *real* issues to concern ourselves with instead.
Showing up for a better world doesn't require perfect grammar and spelling.
Only presence and a willingness to learn.
:) Thanks for the reminder to keep trying.
@MLClark I understand this completely. I've been discovering a lot of typos in the poetry manuscripts I've been sending out lately, and I find it discouraging, but I try not to unsubmit and resubmit as a knee-jerk reaction. I have (properly diagnosed) OCD, so it's difficult, but I'm managing.
Bottom line: you're not alone.
perfectionism.
hmmmm. you too? that's what one of my teachers said about me to my mom at parents' night🤔
@MLClark
🌸💜🌸