Writers: It’s Okay To Change Your Opinion
It has taken me a while to realise that it’s okay to change your opinion. And that goes for everyone – writer, designer, gardener, teacher, doctor, astronaut, and the President included. Everyone.
Everyone gets a free, unlimited pass to change their mind.
When I write articles and poems, they’re often based on a feeling I’m experiencing in that moment, or have been experiencing recently.
Sometimes, those feelings are fleeting. Other times, they stick around for years. Some are still yet to pass, and maybe they never will. Who’s to say?
The greatest lesson life has taught me so far is you’d be foolish to predict who and where you’ll be in the future. Not only is it wasted time and energy, it’s much like playing the lottery. There are endless possibilities based on a selection of endless choices you will make every day. Some seemingly small and insignificant; others momentous.
I started my career as a freelance writer when I was 25. It was around that time that I started writing more frequently just for fun, too. That in itself was an unexpected shift in my life.
And four years later, everything has changed.
I almost don’t recognise that younger version of me.
I mean, I know it’s me. But she’s yet to quit her day job, write and publish three books, experience her first relationship, and travel the world. That woman is yet to embark on a new chapter, which is going to dramatically change the course of her life.
If I’m being honest, at 25, I was still waiting to start living. My life was so narrow and ordinary and predictable. I was in a space of feeling trapped and suffocated, and I longed to break free and immerse myself in all things extraordinary.
The biggest things on my mind were wondering what sex would be like when I finally had it; wondering if I might get fired today, and wondering what I might have for dinner that evening.
But then I had sex, I quit that job, I moved 7000 miles away, and I started a business from the ground, up. And all of that took a lot of soul stretching; which meant I shifted, I grew, and I expanded.
My priorities and intentions changed. The way I viewed life changed. My ideas and opinions changed. They shifted and grew as I did. Of course they did. It would be peculiar if they remained the same.
So when I look back over the many articles and books I’ve written over the years, it’s no surprise to occasionally find myself cringing at something I once thought, and said. And naturally, what makes it worse is you can’t erase something once it’s published. It’s out there, for the whole world to see.
But this is what growth looks like.
And I’d rather have the occasional cringe, than be void of an opinion and spend my entire career sitting on the fence saying nothing.
It’s okay to change your opinion. Actually it’s great, because it means you’re questioning everything you’ve learned, you’re having new experiences, you’re stepping out of the box and embracing discomfort.
And each time you do, you get a little closer to figuring out who you really are at your heart, and your soul path in this lifetime.
If you waited until you had it all figured out before you started writing, or doing anything, you’d never start. You’d always be waiting, or you wouldn’t have an opinion at all. And wouldn’t that be a whole lot worse than writing a few things that make you make you roll your eyes a few years later?
Give yourself permission as a writer, as a person, to have an opinion, and to change it. And get okay with changing it often.
Because this is growth. This is evolution. This is great, soul work.