Your Words Matter More Than Fame

So keep churning them out...

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

I have written op-ed columns for about 30 years in various publications. I have been published by an assortment of magazines, from the South Carolina Baptist Courier all the way to a couple of pieces in The Atlantic. I’ve had tens of thousands of readers.

I dreamed of syndication, growing up reading Peanuts comics and writers like George Will, Kathleen Parker, P.J. O’Rourke, Lewis Grizzard and (small flex here) my friend George Singleton.

My wife and children gave me great material and didn’t mind being the topic of my writing. I never stopped being a physician; I would argue that some great material from the bedside; both serious and comical. (Hemingway seemed to think that war was the best inspiration for a writer; I’d suggest that marriage, family and medicine are right up there too.)

I have made some money at it but I have never been what anyone would call famous, except in some rather narrow demographics and geographic areas. Still, I can call myself a professional writer. That’s pretty cool for a guy without any formal education as a writer; except, God bless them, my English teachers, Mrs. Chandler in junior high and Mrs. McCarty in high school.

For quite a while I was a favorite of church ladies in the upstate of South Carolina; and that’s a thing I’m very proud of because they are a discriminating group with no fear of speaking their minds.

I have also been able to engage physicians, who are busy and mostly a bit ADHD. I’m proud of the fact that I could get them to take a few minutes to ready 750 or 1000 words of mine.

Over the years I have given my readers laughter and tears, perspective and new insights. And sometimes, they have come to me and said “I have always thought that but I never had any place or opportunity (or the freedom) to say it.”

That’s worth a lot. And in the end, far more than having a vast number of subscribers, paid or otherwise.

Your words will live on in ways you can never begin to imagine. That’s precious compensation you must never, ever forget.

So write on and stop worrying about likes, subscribers, riches or anything else. Those things may or may not come.

But to someone, what you say will matter.