Copyblogger is turning off comments but you won’t find me supporting their move. They have built a large enough presence you’ll find more than a few posts about their new policy but this really isn’t one of them.
Don’t take the headline above as a swipe at Copyblogger or any of the other blogs linked within this post because it is not my intent and if you are willing to walk with me you’ll see that. Fact is I inserted those two links here to provide some background for those who are not familiar with Copyblogger and/or what they have done.
Stop Telling Me What To Think
Around 30 years or so ago I had a screaming match with my father, one of many in which I told him to stop telling me what to think.
Thanks the joy of time passing and life experience I can look back now and see I wasn’t indoctrinated exactly the way I thought I had been but I have never been one to just accept what I am fed/told so I go my own way and then figure out if I need to adjust.
The biggest difference between now and then is I have a much easier time admitting when I am wrong and saying I am sorry. And I have less of an issue about going my own way then I did because my fear of failure is very different than it once was.
That is what happens when you have success and then you fall off of a cliff and bounce all the way down the hill. You realize that though you are battered and bruised you survived the climb up and the fall down.
Call it a longer winded way of my saying I never have accepted or believed that our success as writers/marketers/parents/people is limited by short attention spans, what other people think and all that other rot we hear about.
What Is The Most Dishonest Post You Have Ever Written?
I am trying to hold myself to the same standard I ask of you so I am trying to come up with an answer. I am not sure what to list because my finger is pointed at the people who write blogs that suggest they have all the answers and have never failed. Maybe that is a mistake, maybe I am missing the forest for the trees.
Maybe I should come up with a different headline but I don’t really feel like it. Yeah I know the blogosphere is noisy and that if we don’t work hard we won’t get readers so we have to come up with clever headlines.
I heard it and I play with it. Remember I am the who uses sexual innuendo to pull people in but that doesn’t always work as well for me as you might think.
Why?
Because I prefer to be more direct. I would rather write something like “5 Ways To Give Better Head” or “Women Who Say They Don’t Care About Size Are Lying.”
Hmm…I might use that second one because the multiple meanings guarantee I’ll get traffic.
Maybe the most dishonest thing I have ever written is that I don’t care about traffic because I do but I am not lying when I say I will write regardless of comments or not.
Why Do You Do What You Do?
When I was a kid I got into trouble more than once for doing the wrong thing. Sometimes the folks would ask me why I did what I did and I would shrug my shoulders because I just did it, without thinking.
It wasn’t a good explanation and it is not one I like hearing from my kids but sometimes they do it too.
Confession: sometimes it is valuable to just do things, to follow your gut and let instinct guide you. Out on the basketball court I never shoot more accurately than when I let the ball fly without worrying about what happens if I miss.
Here in the blogosphere I never write better or more honestly than when I just write without fear, concern or jealousy.
It is easy to over think it all and let our fear of success kill our ability to connect with our words. I am trying hard not to kill that in my kids.
What do you think?
TheJackBÂ I eagerly anticipate your response.Â
I did have a guest post that wasn’t about tech. So much fun!
http://www.aha-now.com/dont-get-on-that-train/
wonderoftech  It is a good question and I am thinking about the answer. Haven’t ignored it, just haven’t decided what the answer is.
It would be very interesting to see a post from you that wasn’t tech oriented.
Lardavbern  I think you are exactly right.
You didn’t answer your own question. I was very curious to learn which one of yours you think is the least honest.
I would get skewered if I wrote a dishonest post at The Wonder of Tech. Plenty of techies who read my blog would call me out if I tried to put one over on my readers.Â
I have a dream of writing an anonymous guest post for a friend’s blog so I could get really bold. I’m wondering if anyone would guess it was me from my writing style. Hmm…perhaps you could start a series of mystery guest authors and we all could guess who it was.
I do have my readers in mind to some degree when I write. However, the irony is that the more honest you are, generally the better your piece and the more it will be liked.