Should It Bother Me That Much ?

Like many people, I enjoy reading and the feelings of motivation or inspiration a well-written article, story, or book can provide.  I subscribe to several different email groups and blog writers, reading their updates as often as I am able (usually during lunch breaks or if I'm feeling a lack of motivation).

One of the blogs I get email posts from a few times a week contains great wisdom and summarizes complex concepts in bite-sized chunks, making it very easy to read and apply in my own world.  Sadly, this same author constantly includes misspellings and grammatical errors.  So much so, that only a handful of hundreds of posts I have read were "error-free."

This has bothered me a great deal over the years, and in some cases has even kept me from being able to finish reading an otherwise impressive post.  I just find it too great a challenge to accept such great wisdom in the midst of basic writing mistakes.

At least, I used to.

If you've never heard the phrase "eat some of your own cooking" then allow me to explain the concept.  In business it means be a customer of your own product.  In relationships it means consider how you would feel if your partner did the same to you.  In all cases, it is a call to look at yourself and your actions before getting too judgemental of others' performance.

A few months ago I was feeling particularly irritated at another ruined post from this author, so I went to my blog to write about it.  I happened to click on a prior post of mine, rather than opening a new post to create.  And I noticed a glaring error!  (Wouldn't it have been funny if it had been a post about being a hypocrite?)  It wasn't.  In truth, the subject of the post is irrelevant, but the hypocrisy in my righteous indignation at this other writer was not.  I was immediately humbled and embarrassed.  I dug deeper and within minutes found a post with another error.  Oh the humanity!

After some time spent trying to justify why my insignificant little blog was exempt from judgements on this front, while his followed-by-hundreds-of-thousands-of-readers blog was not, my own cooking began to taste quite foul.  Every excuse I came up with for myself was just as valid, if not more so, for this other author.  And if I have any hope that people would still gain something from reading my posts, with or without any errors, I should certainly extend the same courtesy to this accomplished blogger.


Song Of The Day:
Some music has the ability to just make things chill.  You can listen to the soothing tones and relax.  One of these is "Breeze On By" which is an update by Donny Osmond on a classic George Benson standard.  I also think the name of this song is a reminder of what I should do when reading these blog posts in the future.  When I see the mistakes I'll be better off if I can just breeze on by them, rather than getting caught up in the details.  I hope any readers of my posts will do the same for me.  :)

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