Don’t Let A Typo Take Over Your Life

Typo Terror or Asymmetric Opportunities?

Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust on Unsplash

For someone who’s not a native English speaker, writing and speaking English can feel like climbing Mt Everest. I know it because I struggled to climb this mountain eight years back.

I had no courage to publish my work because I was afraid of making a typo. I couldn’t see the upside of writing online or creating content back then. My brain could only think about the mistakes I’d make if I published my work. My obsession with the typo was so extreme that I would think about it before I even sat down to write.

I dreamt about people mocking me for making typos on my blog; I’d get chills thinking about making a grammatical error in my tweets. It was getting out of my hands, and I lost my sense. The Typo Terror was so strong that I eventually stopped writing.

Those were some of the most challenging days of my writing career.

An aspiring writer the other day made me walk down memory lane when typos had more control over me than my ideas and work. The young writer talked about the same challenges I went through. She was worried about making mistakes publically.

The Typo Terror consumed her. The tunnel vision had made everything else look hazy, including the endless opportunities. It was time I…