Sometimes You Have to Say F*ck

I received a kind, thoughtful email a while back from a reader who asked me to remove an asterisked expletive from my blog post. The logic was fair. The curse wasn’t essential, and I could have worded my sentence differently. But something didn’t feel right inside of me.

After reading the email, I witnessed my conditioning arise. I saw how my habitual thoughts pushed me toward pleasing this reader and making…