what are you putting off that isn't really about time?
there is the story you tell people, and then there is what actually happened. the gap between them is worth looking at.
every day there's one live question, the same for everyone. answer it anonymously, see what other people said. it's all gone in seven days.
answer today's question →think of something you've told more than once, a version of events you've repeated to friends or to yourself. write it down as you usually tell it. then go back and mark the places where you smoothed something over, left something out, or shifted the blame slightly. write the fuller version underneath. you don't have to show anyone. pay attention to what you removed. was it something that made you look worse? something that made it more complicated? sometimes the edit reveals more about us than the event itself.
- pick one detail you always leave out when you tell this story, and write about why.
- write the version that the other person in the story might tell.
- notice whether the edited version protects you or protects someone else.
this is for you if you've noticed yourself telling a story on autopilot and felt a small flicker of dishonesty somewhere in the middle.