I thought I knew my answer…

I finally settled on the couch with a blanket and Ruby, my favorite dog-sitting and TV-watching buddy. It had been a long day. I’d taken Alice to the airport earlier, and she’d be gone for five days. Work was done, dinner was over, and I finally had time to watch The Devil Wears Prada 2.

Who doesn’t like Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Stanley Tucci, and Emily Blunt in the same movie? 🙂 

If you haven’t seen the movie, maybe skip reading this, cuz there’s gonna be some spoilers. 

In the movie, Anne Hathaway’s character, Andy, faces a decision about whether to write a tell-all book about Meryl’s character, Miranda Priestly. She sends in a book proposal, and the publisher offers her $350,000 to write it.

Whoa. That’s a lot of money. And for a second, even Andy hesitates.

Sitting there with Ruby on my lap, I started wondering what I would do. $350,000 would be incredibly hard to turn down. Yet I kept thinking that I’d wobble too.  I couldn’t do that to someone. Trash them, tell everyone the ugliest things about them, and possibly ruin their reputation.

Damn, could I really write a book knowing what I put on those pages might affect someone’s career or change how people saw them?

I didn’t think I could. And I felt pretty clear about my answer until something changed.

Later, we find out Miranda knew about the book. Not only did she know, but she encouraged Andy to write it, including the harshest and most unflattering parts.

Then Miranda says something else that stopped me. She talks about what it took for her to have the career she has.

That made my moral compass wobble.

If the person I was writing about knew what I was doing and actually wanted me to tell the whole truth, did that change things?

Hmmmm… 

Yeah, I think it did for me.

I could imagine writing that book. But I wouldn’t want to write it just to trash Miranda or expose all the awful things she’d done.

I’d want to understand her, too. What did it take for her to become Miranda Priestly? What did that career cost her? What did she sacrifice with her family and in the rest of her life to become that successful?

I could tell the ugly parts and still write about her with empathy.

And I kept thinking about it after the movie ended. The question had become bigger than whether I’d take the $350,000 and write the book. 

It’s: could I tell the whole truth and still treat the person I was writing about with empathy?

Have you ever faced a decision where you were certain you knew what was right… until one piece of information made the answer a lot less clear? 
I’m all ears. 🙂

Hands at your back.
Always,
Xox
Shannon

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Weekly Photos:

1. Early morning hike with Ruby. I love how the sun distorts shadows, and I’m so huge and Ruby is so small. 🙂
2. Yeah, she has the cutest face. I think she kind of looks like a Muppet.
3. I love this bridge over Shasta Lake, especially when the train goes by, and there are trucks on the road above. I think it makes for an interesting pic.
4. This Geese pic was pretty funny. On my Sacramento trail walk last weekend, there were literally 40 or so geese in the lake. And among a bunch of them, you’d see these butts on the water. So I got a picture. This is the time of the year they dive for the algae, and the water there is pretty shallow. I tried to get a bunch of them, but it was too blurry, so this works…. “Butts in the air like they don’t care!” Go Canadian Geese!
5. Here’s the geese right side up. It doesn’t have anything hanging from its mouth, so I’m thinking it’s gonna dive again…
6. My desk setup with none other than Ruby, who thinks she’s a lap dog. Well, she kind of is, yet she’s a wee bit bigger than Emma, so I need a pillow on my lap so she doesn’t fall off. Yeah, she’s pretty spoiled.
7. The river was so calm this week. They turned off the spillway, which feeds water to all the farms south of us, because we’re coming into fall and they don’t need as much water. So calm water makes for a sweet pic of the Shasta Bally and the blue sky. I just love that reflection in the water and am grateful that I get to be out on the trail next to the river.

P.S.S. Love Books as I Do? – I’m always reviewing the best nonfiction books – Where Buddha Meets Business.

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