Lori Duff Writes

I got my nails done the other day, which I’m sure you don’t care about because, well, why would you.  But it makes a good prelude to my point, so bear with me.  I am deep at my core a straight arrow, so my acts of rebellion come out in small, harmless gestures like getting half pink/half sparkly fingernails.  Anyway, there are, apparently, many different ways to make one’s fingernails half pink/half sparkly, and the nail tech was asking me which of the methods I preferred. 

My answer, which was a variation on the answer I always give when asked questions like that was, “I have no idea.  I’m a lawyer, not a nail tech.  You don’t tell me how to practice law, I don’t tell you how to do nail stuff.”

The guy laughed and said, “Just make it look nice, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Some people, well, they have opinions.”  He leaned heavy on the word opinions.

“Not me.”

I thought back to when I was planning my wedding.  The whole thing seemed overwhelming to me.  I remember meeting with the florist for the first time, and she said, “What kind of flowers do you want?”  And I thought, why would you limit yourself to my knowledge of the floral world?  I’m no expert.  I’m aware of what grows in my yard and what they sell in the front of the grocery store.  I don’t know what is in season and what looks good with what.  I don’t remember exactly what I said, but I think it was something like, “I dunno.”

It took several rounds of “are you sure”s before she believed me that I just wanted happy, colorful flowers and beyond that I honestly didn’t care.  I’d never once been to a wedding and thought, “wow, those are some butt-ugly flowers,” so I doubted I’d go to my own and think that.[1] 

Let the experts do their jobs.

I’m good at a lot of things.  I’m an expert at a precious few things, but those things?  I’ve spent years practicing and educating myself and I know what I know.  For example, I have been a lawyer for 30 years.  That’s at least 40 hours a week for 52 weeks a year for 30 years.  40x52x30=62,400.  That’s 62,400 hours of lawyering.  But yeah, you listened to a podcast once, so you know more about trusts than I do.  Sigh.

Like how when COVID hit, we all suddenly became microbiology and infectious disease specialists.  Nope.  Not me.  I have friends who have spent their 62,000 hours practicing those fields.  I’m accepting their opinions without question, given that I haven’t taken a biology class since 1985 or so. 

None of us are better or worse than any other of us.  But we’re different.  We all have our skills, things that interest us, things we’re good at, things we’ve studied, and things we’re naturally talented at.  All of us should play to our strengths.  The world needs doctors and the world needs carpenters.  We need people to fix our cars and cook our food and people who know how to make half pink and half sparkly fingernails.  We all just have different jobs to do. 

So let’s make a deal: I won’t tell you how to do your job, and you don’t tell me how to do mine.

[1] And, as it turned out I didn’t.  Truth be told, I can’t remember much about the blur that was my wedding 25 years ago, but one thing I can conjure up a pretty detailed picture of in my mind’s eye is my flowers.  They were colorful and joyful and I have absolutely no idea what kind of flowers they were. 

If you enjoyed this and want to read more like it, visit Lori on Twitter or on Facebook or read her award winning books.  You can order her novella, “Broken Things”, by clicking here.  The audiobook can be found on Audible or iTunes.  Look for her novel “Devil’s Defense” coming in November 2024 from She Writes Press.

Lori Duff

Lori B. Duff is an award-winning author who practices law on the side.  Her latest book, “If You Did What I Asked in the First Place” was awarded the Gold Medal for humor in the Foreword INDIES awards in 2019. You can follow her on Twitter at @LoriBDuff and on Facebook. For more blogs written by Lori, click here. For more information about Lori in general, click here. If you want Lori to do your writing for you, click here. If you want Lori to help you market your book, click here.