I recently wrote up a blog post. When I reviewed it, I wasn’t very happy with what I had written. So I went through to rewrite it, trying to change the tone, cutting or altering sections that didn’t seem to work, and tweaking it over and over again. But still, something didn’t seem right.
Eventually I decided that I could keep working on it forever, but instead I needed to just finish it and accept that it wasn’t my best work. Which is fine. Not everything can be my best work – That’s why it’s called my best work. And by definition 50% of what I write will be below my average quality. So I did the final layout, added photos, and scheduled the post to go live the next morning.
Just before I went to bed that night, I realized what it was that was bothering me. The post was about how a certain belief that some people have about nutrition and weight loss is wrong. (I won’t say what the belief is, but it’s something that is often touted in clickbait headlines.)
My intention in writing the post was to be helpful. I was saying that people shouldn’t take that bad advice. But to readers, it would come off as sneering at those who have different views than I do. And that’s exactly the tone that I don’t want for my blog.
So I deleted the post.
This meant that I had wasted several hours of work. But that’s better than putting something of negative value on my blog. (And I guess it provided some value, in that it served as the inspiration for this post.)
I’ve mentioned before that one of my techniques to fight my internet argument addiction is that if I’m not sure posting/sending something is a good idea, I’ll e-mail it to myself so I can think about it. In this case I kind of did that accidentally by scheduling the post to go live in the future, which gave me the opportunity to recognize that posting this was a bad idea. (Even though I hadn’t realized that possibility when I initially wrote it.)
I need to view things from the perspective of my readers. And this is important not just for blog posts, or stories, or books, but for all communication. When you are communicating, you shouldn’t think of things in terms of what you want to say. You should think about how you want other people to receive what you are saying. Which first means you need to understand their perspective.
This ties a bit to the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People habit 5: Seek first to understand, then to be understood. Now, that habit is more about one-on-one relationships. I can’t sit down and listen to the innermost feelings of every single person reading this blog before I write a post. But I do need to consider how people will react to my posts.
In this case, people who held the opinion I was disparaging wouldn’t have been convinced that they were wrong. The only thing I would have convinced them was that I was wrong, and also kind of a jerk. And even to people who were on the fence or who had no opinion, I probably would have come off as smug and condescending. (People who already agreed with me would agree with me, but what’s the value in that?)
I’ve worked hard to build the habit of remembering this to keep me out of trouble when it comes to politics. When I see something about politics on Facebook that I vehemently disagree with, before I respond I ask myself, “How do I think this person will react to any effort I make to convince them they’re wrong?” Inevitably the answer is “Badly. Any attempt to do so will only hurt our friendship instead of making them reconsider their position, and also make Facebook a bit uglier, and make the world a slightly worse place. So I should not do that.”
But I need to remember that this applies to outside of politics as well, whenever I’m expounding on views that the people might disagree with.
This is why it’s important to try to understand other people’s perspective. And not just the people you love, respect, and care about, but even the people you vehemently disagree with. Because it’s only by understanding their perspective that you can know how they’ll receive what you say and do.
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