Over the past few weeks I’ve really been contemplating singleness – my role as a single woman, and the inherent problems and blessings of marriage. Specifically, 1 Corinthians 7:32-35 keeps coming to mind – that married people are concerned with the things of this world. Lately I’ve come to realize how true that is. Not that I am by default an example of a person concerned only with the things of the Lord, of course; but there are a ton of odd things that married people have to consider that don’t even cross my mind.

With that in mind, I’ve decided to generate a list of some of the things I appreciate about being single right now. This is not to say I never want to get married. If I ever do, I sincerely hope I can look back at this list and say why I’m glad these things are no longer true. But to any of you out there who’s single and struggling with that fact (including my future self, most likely), if this list helps you cope at all, then my perpetual bachelorhood will not have been a waste.

1. I don’t have to worry about anybody’s allergies or general preferences. Cooking-wise, as someone who loves almost all kinds of food, I’m only limited by what’s already in my fridge. So if I feel like making tofu one week or buying 2 lbs. of Swiss chard for a Greek-style pie, nobody else will complain. Similarly, when I eventually get a dog (assuming I’m still single then) I can get the breed I want. I don’t have to worry if my husband is allergic…or doesn’t even like dogs.
2. I can work late. Most of my coworkers have to leave work by a certain time to make sure they’re home to help out with the kids (or to simply spend time with their spouses), but if I’m in the middle of something I can stay as late as I need.
3. I can stay up as late as I want with no concerns. Some friends and I regularly get together every other Friday for gaming; if we’re running past midnight one week, one of the guys will get a call from his wife (who chose not to participate), making sure he’s not dead in a ditch somewhere and is on his way home soon. While the concern is enviable, so is the position of being able to stay out as late as I want.
4. I’m not interrupted at home. I’d regularly interrupt Mom while she was in the middle of her daily devotions as a kid; as an adult maintaining my own devotional life, I’m very grateful that I don’t have to deal with that. My only interruptions are from e-mails and phone calls.
5. I don’t have to hide anything. This is one of those weird things I just don’t think about. Two coworkers today were talking about hiding their browser history for positive reasons – for example, buying gifts for their wives. One of them actually makes sure to time Amazon purchases just after paying the last credit card bill so his wife won’t see and question the expense until the end of the month (when, hopefully, he’s already given her the gift). That never even crossed my radar as something married people would have to consider.
6. I get to grow in faith in a unique way. Marriage implies having someone to specifically turn to when things go wrong. We singles can turn to our friends, yes, but in a lot of ways we’re reliant first on God to put the correct people for any given situation in our path (say, to take care of my car). It’s like the team building exercise of falling backward and trusting your partner to catch you; my only partner is invisible. A friend of mine who spent some time in Albania once told me that over there miracles of healing are a lot more common because they have less money and it’s literally a choice between prayer and a doctor they can’t afford. Singleness is a very little bit like that.

So what are some things you like about where you’re at right now?

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religion, singleness christianity, linkedin, singleness

A picture is worth a thousand words. And sometimes, a picture version of words is worth a thousand words in a non-system-standard font. Read the full story about this cake over at Cake Wrecks; the short version is that the poor font on here was supposed to be Thai, but the baker’s computer didn’t have the appropriate font, and for some reason the baker didn’t know any better.

I have empathy for the guy who designed the cake. I’ve had font errors before, especially when working with free fonts. Fortunately thus far, none have gone to print (though I did send a PDF to a prof once with only half the fonts embedded; at least I caught that problem quickly).

Professional editors and designers, of course, know the solution to this (stick with standard fonts, create outlines of special fonts, package the fonts with the document when you send it to print, have a good editorial process in place to catch problems, etc.). But if you’re not a designer–if you’re not trained to think about these things–what do you do?

Simple: Don’t. Be. Lazy. Remember grade school, where they taught you to check your work? Yeah, it’s kind of like that. Had the person who ordered this cake, for example, chosen to deliver the printout in person instead of through e-mail, he would have saved himself some pain off the bat.

There’s a similar rule for the decorator, of course: If it looks like a mistake, it probably is. We’re all sound and fury here; we are quick to notice others’ mistakes, and probably quick to rip them a new one to the rest of the world, but we’re not so willing to actually call them out and ask, “Hey, was this supposed to be like this?” Maybe as an editor I’m a unique case in this, but I know that not only do I make mistakes, I’m also bad at catching my own. But I can’t improve if I’m not aware there’s a problem.

I remember sitting at the lunch table one day in middle school with my friends. One of them had a rather large booger in her nose for a good 15 minutes before she finally discovered it. And here’s the thing–all of us, and there were six or seven of us at the table–noticed it. And we said nothing. And when she finally noticed it and one of us mentioned that it had been there for a while, she got (rightly) mad at us for not pointing it out sooner. Because really, yes, it would have been embarrassing to her to have it pointed out, but I firmly believe that it was more embarrassing that it wasn’t.

In short: everything in life needs editing. The best editors in the world still need someone to edit them. So no matter who you are, if you see something that you know can be fixed, say something while it’s still fixable. You may step on a few toes, sure, but more often than not the person will be grateful for the advice.

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design, editing, fonts editing, linkedin, Typography