Backspace…Backspace…Backspace.

As writers, we are forever editing. We add, enhance, delete—or sometimes, in my case, crumble up the paper and start all over again. When I’m writing on a computer or tablet, I’ll find myself cruising along at a good clip. Then I stop to collect my thoughts. Change that—backspace… backspace… backspace. Insert new words. Resume.

Some of the changes I make are dramatic. Others are so minuscule they’d go unnoticed by anyone else. But I know the difference. I never hit publish until I feel that all of me is standing behind my message. Some may call this perfectionism. My family calls it OCD. Either way, it’s my personal policy: nothing gets released into the writer’s universe unless it truly sounds like me.

Changes.

It’s a new year, and almost everyone is armed with resolutions—whether you call them goals, intentions, or improvements. Maybe you frame it as an enhancement, but it’s still a decision to do something differently. This year, I thought: why not make it a year of rephrasing? A tweak. A shift. A new approach. Still a change, just a subtler one.

In the middle of my class at the gym this morning, I glanced down at my heart rate as I pushed hard on the Assault Bike. My watch flashed 166—solidly in the orange zone. I rolled my eyes and muttered under my breath, “I’m too old for this effing %^+# sh*t. And yet I’ll be back here at 9 a.m. tomorrow.”

Backspace. Backspace. Backspace.

“I get to be back here tomorrow at 9 a.m.”

New spin. Reframing things will serve me far better. Yes, I’m older—but I’m still doing this six days a week, and I feel damn good. That matters.

I don’t have to do anything. I get to do everything. And for the next 348 days, when things feel heavy or rough or just plain exhausting, I’ll pause, reconsider, and edit accordingly. Because sometimes the most powerful change we can make isn’t rewriting the story at all—it’s simply knowing when to hit backspace and choose better words to keep going.

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Author: KikiFikar

Kiki Fikar is a native New Yorker who is passionate about taking the day to day life we all experience and sharing it in her tales from Suburbia. She will often be found at the gym, writing snippets each day for future story lines, listening to her two children create their lives, and building the perfect beachfront home and writing retreat in her mind.

22 thoughts on “Backspace…Backspace…Backspace.”

  2. I used to CrossFit (and before that Boot Camp) but I switched to a more HIIT / Functional Strength gym last May. I have a torn meniscus and the CrossFit was killing my knee.

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  6. i used to never think of things in this manner and pushed myself to burnout. it’s so important to understand that pausing and retreat are not signs of losing but are integral steps in the overall process of advance and maintaining energy. great post Karen! we’re getting snow here in NJ , if you are too be careful out there on the roads! Mike

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  14. Nice piece… like it like it… I’ve always been the same.. being the perfectionist and all… however I’m a little different here on my blog with my life stories and dreams… I’ll roughly write them… post them… then start editing them after lol… replacing stuff.. removing stuff.. adding crap lol… and sometimes I will continue to edit them long after they are done as I think of stuff… and by then no one is reading them 😁

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