Writing stuff online is a funny old thing at the best of times. Who will read it? What will they think? Should we go personal and risk oversharing, or go sharp and professional and risk seeming cold?
At the moment, writing content to stay professionally visible feels more difficult and more significant than ever. Personally, after a few weeks of blind panic, I realised I needed to reach out and connect with other people even more (I’m just checking you’re all still there!) but I’m painfully aware that everyone is in constantly shifting seasons, changing minute to minute. There is that trepidation of not wanting to say the wrong thing.
And we can tie ourselves in empathetic knots thinking about all the people who are struggling or being brave on our behalf. Our work may start to feel small and insignificant in comparison. We might start to question why we’re doing it at all.
Sometimes it’s easier for us to say nothing. Or to say something safe and bland that we don’t honestly, truly feel in our bones.
I don’t have the answer to it, and anybody who says they do is fibbing, frankly. There’s no right or wrong here.
I tell you what I do know. Take the pressure off. Nobody needs any more worry right now.
If you still want to reach out but you can’t find the words, there is plenty you can do to avoid drifting into total digital hermitage:
🔸Comment on a post
🔸Like someone’s work
🔸Support a cause someone in your network is championing
🔸Send a direct message to check in and say hi
🔸Take part in a Twitter chat or Instagram hashtag challenge
🔸Share someone’s good work or a piece that resonates for you
We can sit next to each other in our online communities and be with each other without needing to say profound, transformational things.
We can be kind to ourselves and each other.
And we can just be.