Editing

Why I obsessed over editing my last post

A few days ago I wrote on this Substack for the first time in two years. More than anything else, it was a fraction of my internal dialogue, about the tools I’ve discovered and adapted into my life. About the role of writing for my mental health and creativity.

It was a spontaneous, unplanned night of writing, and I hit publish without thinking too much at around 1 am and went to bed.

I slept well.

But the next day I obsessed over editing it.

Maybe it was because it had been so long since I last wrote, it felt like I needed to get it “right”. But if I’m being honest, I think it was because I made the mistake of sharing it on my Instagram story the next day.

I had intended to share it only with “close friends”, but I started a social media detox a few months ago and I no longer have the app on my phone — I couldn’t figure out how to share it with close friends only on Safari, and impulsively, I gave up on trying to figure it out, and just shared it.

It probably didn’t even matter at all to anybody. There are so many fucking stories, posts, ads, and reels on Instagram for any user to scroll through. I didn’t even attach the post link to the story, so you’d have to put in some effort to find it. If 100 people see my story, I’m assuming that maybe 2 will go through the effort of finding the post and reading some of it. Basically, I really had zero reason to be concerned about who sees my writing.

Yet, I instinctively wanted to control it — how I came across, how accurate I was, how many grammar or spelling errors I made.

I didn’t edit heavily, just a misspelled word here, a corrected timeline there, maybe 2 to 3 awkward phrases, half a dozen punctuations.

But as I edited, a heavy sense of shame draped over me, not dissimilar to the same shame I felt in middle school when I’d go home and edit any photos I took that day with friends, before sharing them with anybody.

The anxiety around editing out imperfections runs deep in our culture. In our childhood homes, schools, playgrounds, workplaces, online and offline communities, we’ve been told over and over again that we have to strive for perfection, that there are always ways to edit, frame, filter better — to be accepted and loved.

And we hunger endlessly for love. We’d do anything. We become insatiable. Always hungry. Always feel like we’re not loved, and always being told that the reason for that is because we’re not cute enough, smart enough, assertive enough, tall enough, skinny enough, muscular enough, smiling enough, wealthy enough.

It seems like no matter what we do, we’re never good enough to be loved.

But we don’t wanna work for it. We want cheap, easy love, in the shape of likes and comments.

And we don’t wanna ask for it, either. Asking for love is a flaw in itself. We pretend like we’re too good for love, but yearn desperately for it in obvious secrecy.

No wonder why I obsessed over smoothing out flaws of my body and blemishes in my words.

But if I’m editing so much, is it still me?

I wonder if Substack has any stats about how many times the average writer edits a post after publishing it. I bet it’s high.

The next time I hear the little inner voice that urges me to edit my post, I want to try my best to ignore it. To honour the most authentic version of me that has many, many flaws.

Flaws that make me uniquely, me. Flaws that make me real. Flaws that I want to use, to tell you, whoever you are and wherever you are in life:

You can have flaws and still be okay.