“So, when you want to use a word to express a change or to describe an action, choose affect.”
“Here is another way to remember when to use affect and effect: A is for action (affect); E is for end result (effect)”
https://www.touro.edu/departments/writing-center/tutorials/affect-or-effect/
I always get these two mixed up. So I look them up… a lot.
The “A” for action and “E” for end result, come in handy.
As an aspiring writer learning new things comes with the new territory.
And being in new territory requires you to get your wits aboutcha!
Affect and Effect are not a habit yet. I use them. But not every day.
They are just out of reach… like my four foot, drywall, T-Square. I have it located up, and out of the way, on the wall, above, and behind, the main work bench in my garage.
You can reach it when you need it, but you don’t need it everyday. And using it isn’t second nature. You know how it works, but your different jobs make you fumble with it once or twice, before you decide which side you want to cut off of your project.
I’ve done a few articles recently using some job training I received recently. Explaining how I applied some anxiety breathing techniques to help, when during training everything was new and a bit stressful.
Today’s thought is about how… when I trained my replacement to cover my job duties while I was away training… I knew my responsibilities cold, I knew them well enough that even while training the young guy we never ran behind on time… but… when I went back to my own duties… things I knew and did without thinking twice… were lost to me.
I had plastered over “my information” with all “the new” information from the other job.
I even resorted to using my old notes when it came to my “critical” point of the night when I have a sequential shut down to take care of.
This all has me thinking about “understanding.”
One of the first days back, I had some issues during that shutdown procedure… but… BECAUSE OF the new information I had learned I was able to “figure out” what was happening without calling in back up, I handled it, and moved forward.
I wouldn’t have been able to do that previously.
Doing my “normal” duties I wasn’t completely confident, I would have to re-learn my steps and work on “compartmentalizing” the new information, even though that information wasn’t “a habit” yet either.
Now… how did you perceive that experience?
Did you qualify it as “good”or “bad”… “positive” or “negative?”
The success books describe situations like that as the “point where people give up.”
Or… most people won’t even start something because they don’t want to go through the anxiety of it all.
So there they sit.
Maybe even becoming bitter, believing life can’t be any more than it is right now.
I think I’ve stumbled upon “the gap” that I want to fill with my Emerging Man project.
As I’ve learned… I’ve applied that which I have learned… and then… captured it, almost daily in my writing.
The gap I see in the books I read is one of a bit of missing information concerning the steps to success.
The books will explain having anxiety about new endeavors and how a lot of people stay mired in their current situation because of it… BUT…I haven’t seen anyone EXPLAIN it the way I do, describing the actual negative experience that transpires AS you work through the new thing… toward you positive goal.
Whether it’s, “How to be Successful” or “How to be a Man” they all leave the same gap.
And for me it comes down to UNDERSTANDING.
For me to gain understanding I break things down to their, let’s say, 3 basic steps, then build up from there.
So I believe, in the eyes of those other books… I’m right where I need to be… BECAUSE I am feeling those negative experiences, because I’m growing, EMERGING into new territory.
I also believe I’m in the right spot for my EMERGING MAN project. Understanding that I don’t understand everything that I am experiencing, that’s why I write it all down… first for me… then for you.
But even for me, if I wouldn’t have read those other books, and learned “what to look for” as I press forward, I would not understand where I am right now.
And even though IT IS in the negative stage right now, if that is YOUR VIEW, my new understanding has me understanding not to look at things and placing an opinion on them.
Things are “bad” because we make them bad. It keeps us stuck.
I have good days now… BECAUSE I CHOOSE, and UNDERSTAND them to be good days, regardless if it’s raining or sunny, hot or cold, they ARE good, because I choose them to be good… I understand, and apply that now.
I hope in my writings I can learn to explain that specific mental outlook… cover my assigned gap… and maybe along the way learn and explain how to use affect and effect… effectively.
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