self-indulgence instead of audience indulgence

A mistake common among amateur writers and rookie teachers is self-indulgence. Sometimes you see this in sheer number of words used. The young writer hasn’t yet gotten proficient at cutting out material that doesn’t serve the reader. The young teacher protects students from hard thinking and productive mistakes by talking at them non-stop, even answering his own questions before the kids have a real chance to do so.

A two part self-centeredness can animate this bad habit. One layer of it is fixation on what you (and your ego) find gratifying. Another layer is ignorance of what your audience wants and needs. (Maybe a third layer is ignorance of how to deliver what your audience wants and needs. This last one is a deficit of skill, not virtue.)

Curiously, this self-centered behavior can emerge from a very common anxiety young writers, teachers, and leaders share. They’re afraid of their own power, specifically the power over the people in front of them. Good-hearted but unhelpful doubts about their own worth, unfinished battles with their own shame, lead these leaders, teachers, and writers to talk too much and say too little. They erase the space/opportunity for those they’re responsible for to do their own talking, attempting, and growing.

-eric