It’s Hard to Admit You are not the #Avgeek You Want to Be

This is a post that has been nagging me in the back of my mind for far longer than it should have. A book I am reading right now inspired me to finally write it.

I will say that I am writing it for completely selfish reasons, as I’m hoping it will help me get past it, but maybe someone else has experienced something similar and it will help them too.

So what happened?

Back when the movie Planes Fire and Rescue came out, an amazing movie by the way, I wrote a post about it in which I made the statement something to the effect that a cropduster could never be a turbine powered plane. Someone was quick to respond and correct me, and my cover was blown. They weren’t very friendly in their comment and called out even the name of my blog and that I should know better if I was going to call myself an “aviation guy”.

In response I fixed my post, and I think I may have deleted the comment to hide my embarrassment because I tried to go and find it, but I couldn’t.

To say I left it at that would be a boldface lie, because I have thought about that comment for years. I have allowed it to tear me down and have beaten myself up over it.

At times I decided not to write because I didn’t want to be embarrassed again. Even worse, I claimed to appreciate criticism, but when I received one of the most honest pieces I have very received, I ran and hid.

Rational me knows that I know a ton about aviation, and that at the same time I know very little of what there is to know, but it doesn’t mean it didn’t sting to be called out.

So what is the point of this? I’m not totally sure, but I guess I wanted to say that it is okay to not know everything about something you love. It’s okay to make mistakes and misidentify planes or something else. It’s okay to throw yourself to the world and let them teach you and make you better.

When you allow an accurate critique to beat you down, it is just your negative inner voice trying to mess you up. So tell it to go away, learn from it, and be better for the experience.

No one knows everything about airplanes, but all of us know something and we can all help other people learn more about what we do know. I know I will make lots of stupid mistakes at pilot training and I’m sure I will get critiques when I post about them, but I also know it will help me be better in the end.

Thank you for indulging me in this rant. I hope I can continue to provide value in some form to as many of you as possible.

If the person who made that comment is out there I’m sorry I ran off like a little baby. Thank you for correcting me and helping me to learn.