As I learn every day, managing emotions and work in full view of many thousands of diverse and divergent people is a challenge. It requires continuous thought, maintenance and perspective. And it is difficult to discern what is helpful and what is not, for me and for you. Privacy is invaded almost continuously, mistakes are ruthlessly exposed, criticism is continuous, and often very useful.  Praise and encouragement come as well. Openness is an unnatural state for a writer yet I have come to value and appreciate it. New media has been a friend to me. Sells my books, fills the seats on book tours, sells photographs, spreads the word about my work. Humor is important – laughing at oneself. So is patience. It is easy to get grumpy. I don’t like being grumpy. It is difficult to learn how to honest and not to be manipulative, since the tools here are easily made manipulative.

I am a great fan of encouragement and seek to practice it in my work and life. But the people who are encouraging are not always helpful. When I was a reporter I did a story on a preacher in New Jersey. He had a man who followed him around all day and night called “Amen Charlie” and whenever the preacher made a point, Charlie yelled “Amen.” Charlie loved his work, and the preacher told me that whenever he heard Charlie yell “Amen,” he felt affirmed. One day the preacher looked out from his pulpit and saw there was nobody there but Charlie yelling “Amen,” and he ended up working a hot dog stand on the Asbury Park beach. I remember the Rev. Billy Graham telling me once – I followed him around for months doing a story – to be more afraid of praise than of criticism, because while criticism makes you stronger, praise sometimes puts you to sleep and makes you foolish, because it is what you want to hear.

During my crazy years at the farm, whenever I wanted to do something foolish, I made up wonderful stories about how great a thing it would be to do. To get a 3,000 lb steer, spend $20,000 on a barn, give all my money away to people. Later, when my life was in pieces, I asked myself why nobody tried to stop to me, tell me the truth, warn me that I was heading for a stonewall at a high rate of speed. This was a foolish question. I had set things up so that people had little choice but to cheer me on, tell me I was great. I was listening to “Amen Charlies.” Nobody else was left. They all told me what I wanted to hear.

Today I see it differently. I do not put issues and questions out to the world. My life and decisions are not for the public to decide. Because it’s unfair to put people in the people of having to support my decisions or criticize them. I realized that only I can  make the decisions that affect my life, and only I am responsible for them. This, I learned the hard way, does not mean I can or should do everything I wanted to do. I learned that no is an important word to learn, for me as well as the world beyond. I also learned that some of my worst and most impulsive decisions turned out well for me, in ways I could not have imagined at the time.

I believe –  I hope – that I released other people from the noxious and thankless task of cheering me on or trying to tell me what to do. Not helpful for me, unfair to them. Whenever I put my decisions out into the world, I was being manipulative in one way or the other, organizing my world so that it told me it was okay to do what I already wanted to do. The Internet is a happy home for angry people, but also for “Amen Charlies” and other kinds of cheerleaders, who equate love and support with affirmation. They are not the same thing. Sometimes the most loving messages are the ones I least want to hear.

When I have decisions to make, I choose to be alone with myself, or if it is appropriate, with Maria. I gather myself and listen to myself. Each time I do this I get stronger. I make better decisions. I say no more comfortably when I need to say no. I do not wish to manipulate well-meaning people by drawing them either into supporting me or stopping me. Not their job, my job. I am getting good at it.

Being alone with myself was a seminal step in making decisions in the new world and remembering always that these are my decisions, and I have to stand or fall with them.  Every decision, I remind myself that this is what I need to do to be a whole human being.