Stop the presses!

I kind of wish they still said that phrase in the movies.

It's just so exciting.

It signifies the point in the movie when one of the journalists discovers news so important and groundbreaking that it must be published posthaste, or an error so terrible it must be redacted as soon as physically possible. But to publish the new and improved version of the paper, all of the presses must be stopped and all of the previously printed papers must be discarded so that the new facts can be inserted into the paper, and printed in their stead.

Stopping the presses gives newspapers the chance to change the front page before it gets sent off into the world and seen by everyone. And, hopefully

I get a "stop the presses" moment once in a while, right after I press the bright orange "publish" button.

But it’s not because of anything groundbreaking. No new information, no concrete knowledge of a grave error I must correct. Just a vague and inexpressible fear of having forgotten about something.

As I've mentioned, with blog posts, as with any other area of life, there’s always room for improvement. There is always a different way of wording my sentence, always more facts that I've neglected to mention or comparisons I've failed to make. Maybe there is a flaw in my logic, or I took a Bible verse out of context.

Simple fear can be incredibly debilitating.

So for the longest time, my presses were stopped. They stopped so long they became rusted! Then I gradually regained confidence, started writing new stories and oiled those presses well so that I could start it all up again. I’m not sure how often I will blog after this month is over, but I will definitely make it a priority to post regularly.

If I had the power, I would love to pause time so that I could get everything exactly perfect before the worlds sees it, but unfortunately that’s just not possible. Even if it were, it’s not healthy for me. I have to move on and keep improving every chance I get, but I can't just stop the presses for the fear of having made some sort of mistake. Mistakes happen all of the time, and what helps prevent them is not stopping doing anything, but actually becoming better at what you do so that mistakes happen less often.