litmus test

writing is a litmus test of our soul, whether it be in our personal or professional lives

In many ways, writing is a litmus test of the soul.

In a world where media and messaging are produced at an unthinkable rate, I want to become an expert on how to do it better because information flow and accessibility communicate much more about our values and culture than we’d expect.

Writing, communication, and information dissemination reveal our assumptions and priorities. Where content is king, those who choose to prioritize ingenuity and vulnerability will ultimately prevail—at least that’s what I’d like to believe when confronted with a sea of monotonous, monetized ideas.

The words we choose, the internal that we make external, the truths we choose to reveal—these are all windows revealing the inner mechanisms of our minds.

This is what drew me most to the field of internal communications and organizational development as a writer.

When I applied to grad school, it felt like jumping off a cliff—committing to a career pivot, taking on a heap of debt, and investing a year of my life where value was not necessarily guaranteed. In theory, I knew I would land somewhere, but not before sinking just enough to feel a new terror burgeoning in my chest.

The free fall at the start of grad school felt like an eternity, lifetimes passing as the grey and tan of USC’s walls blurred in my periphery—the classrooms were devoid of windows, tunneling my vision only to the academia before me. I often reminisced about the moments before when I could have made a completely different decision. In another world, my feet were planted firmly on the ground and my stomach didn’t know how to lurch like this. Pay stubs were deposited consistently, whether I gave my work 50% or 100% of myself those past 2 weeks.

I allowed myself to doubt my grad school decisions. It would be untrue to myself to pretend that I knew what I was doing wholeheartedly. This breathable uncertainty gave way to a desperation that made me aware of work that I otherwise wouldn’t have been privy to. It all started with asking myself why we don’t optimize the context of work when we spend all our time optimizing everything else. So much of our lives are spent working—there are surely simple and mighty ways that we can improve our workplaces.

Even with my novel on the back burner, I never wanted to give up my writing. As I sat through my evening classes listening to ideal leader communication and parsing through organization case studies, I saw a common thread.

Miscommunication. A lack of communication.

Our work culminates into something, but do organizations take the time to speak with and to their employees? Instead of treating them like the cogs they’ve been told time and time again that they are, does the organization trust them enough to discuss how the machine runs? Often, organizations move faster than they can communicate, rushing through the details and asking employees to play catch up on their own time.

Organizations often forget—or rather, disregard—communication, now brushing off those responsibilities to AI, flattening any and all divergent thinking.

Yet when we forget to debrief decisions and slow down, we move with less and less intention. Trust runs low and assumptions are dangerously crafted together. When companies can’t keep up their communications, what is their work for? And how long will it really sustain itself through a purgatory of understanding?

We think that communication, writing, and information dissemination can be replaced or minimized. That it can all be sanitized and filtered through this new robotic voice that is meant to mimic ours.

But the endearing imperfections, careful (yet somehow still imperfect) word choices, and effortful stumbling all show intention.

My obsession with writing doesn’t have to live only within the confines of my creative life, but it definitely stems from there. When we read good writing that stirs emotion within us, we can’t help but feel seen.

Someone—emphasis on someone—out there understands what I’m feeling, so much so that they organized it into real words.

There is a place for good writing within the corporate world—a place where words communicate care, and care communicates best intentions. While AI will inevitably play a (hopefully minor) role in workplace writing, I hope that I get to be the arbiter of what makes good internal communication, while infusing it with the kind of character and personality that only a flawed human can.

I graduated last month! :) Clearly lots of reflections have happened since then