There was a guy named Dancho who hated writing articles as much as he hated opening a can of peas only to find that they had added carrots. Writing articles for him was like digging up potatoes with your bare hands—pointless, dirty, and probably full of surprise rocks.
But Dancho had a problem—he was the editor of a small but devilishly demanding website. And not just any website, but a portal for “motivational articles.” They wrote things like, “How to Achieve Your Goals in 7 Days” and “10 Ways to Make Your Life Better While Brushing Your Teeth.” All of this sounded to Dancho like advice on how to make spaghetti without water.
His mornings began with long attempts to convince himself that the day would pass without him being asked to write. “I’ll probably just have to edit today,” he would reassure himself as he sipped his coffee and stared out the window with the expression of a man wondering whether to jump or just close the window.
But the routine was always the same. The editor-in-chief—Mr. Petrov, a man with the face of a sleepy crocodile and the work ethic of a dictator—used to accustom him to the office. There, in the dimly lit room, full of documents, sticky notes, and the faint smell of spilled coffee, Dancho always received his sentence: “We have a hole to fill. Dancho, write an article. And make sure it’s ‘hit’! People need to be inspired!”
This “inspire” sounded to Dancho’s ears like a bell toll of disaster. Once he tried to object:
—Mr. Petrov, I think inspiration is overrated. Maybe people just want to live their lives without being inspired every second?
Petrov looked at him as if he had just suggested serving nail soup in the chair. “Dancho, if we don’t inspire, we don’t exist. Remember that.”
So Dancho would return to his desk, open a blank document, and stare at the cursor that was blinking mockingly. He imagined that if that cursor could talk, it would say, “Well, what are you going to do to me now, huh? Do you have any ideas, or are you going to stay here until your legs go numb?”
Dancho hated the course. He also hated the keywords he had to insert into the text. “Happiness,” “success,” “productivity”—each of them sounded like a hollow shell. But he knew that if he didn’t include them, Mr. Petrov would call him back and lecture him on “SEO optimization as the backbone of our ecosystem.”
“What ecosystem?” Dancho thought. “This is just a website that tricks people into clicking on headlines like ‘10 Ways to Become a Millionaire Before You’re 30,’ when in reality the article said, ‘Start working. Save. Hope.’”
But still, he wrote. Somewhere between the fourth and fifth cups of coffee, Dancho found the strength to compose something that was so superficial that if it were a river, you could cross it with dry shoes.
“Life is like a puzzle,” he once wrote. “Sometimes the missing piece is right in front of you. You just have to look around.”
“What puzzle?” he asked himself. “Life is more like a mess of puzzles that will never fit together.” But these thoughts did not make it into the articles.
When the article was ready, Dancho would send the file to Petrov and prepare for the inevitable feedback.
“Dancho, it’s very good, but can you add a little more positivity?” Petrov would say.
“A little more positivity? What should I write that life is like an endless string of miracles?” Dancho asked himself as he edited his text, adding unnecessarily smiling metaphors.
But the greatest horror for him was when he had to write articles with a personal tone. “Tell a story from your own life that will inspire readers,” was the order. Dancho told stories, of course, but his stories were so fake that even he sometimes wondered if he might not be living in a parallel reality.
“One morning I woke up and decided to change my life,” he once wrote. The truth was that he had simply been late for work that morning because the coffee maker had broken and he had to boil water on the stove. But Petrov approved of the article, calling it “a true victory of the human spirit.”
One day, during his lunch break, Dancho shared with his colleague Maria what he thought of the work.
“You know, Maria, I think if I read one more article about how to ‘find myself,’ I’ll be lost forever. ”
Maria laughed and said,
“Dancho, don’t worry. One day you’ll get so good that you’ll be able to write these articles without ever reading them. ”
That didn’t comfort him. If anything, it made him feel even worse.
One day, after spending a whole week writing articles about “work-life balance”—a topic he personally considered a myth—Dancho decided to write something different. Something real. He opened a new document and began:
“The man who didn’t like writing articles, but had to. This is a story about me — an editor at a motivation website who has no motivation himself.”
Dancho wrote everything he thought about. About the emptiness of clichés, about the falsehood of positive messages, about his own struggle to find meaning in this endless series of words.
He sent the text to Petrov without even thinking about the consequences. The day passed and he waited for the verdict. But nothing happened. Not a single email, not a single call to the office.
The next day, however, Dancho noticed that his article had been published. With the title: “The Truth Behind Motivation: Confessions of an Editor.” And the most surprising thing? The article became extremely popular. The comments under it were full of thanks and approval.
“This is the most honest article I’ve ever read,” someone wrote.
“Finally something different!” added another.
Petrov even sent him an email: “Dancho, great work. Write more like this! Readers love them.”
Dancho laughed. Was this the end of his suffering or the beginning of a new level of absurdity? He didn’t know. But for the first time in a long time, he felt that writing might not be so bad — as long as you can afford to be honest.
But Dancho had a problem—he was the editor of a small but devilishly demanding website. And not just any website, but a portal for “motivational articles.” They wrote things like, “How to Achieve Your Goals in 7 Days” and “10 Ways to Make Your Life Better While Brushing Your Teeth.” All of this sounded to Dancho like advice on how to make spaghetti without water.
His mornings began with long attempts to convince himself that the day would pass without him being asked to write. “I’ll probably just have to edit today,” he would reassure himself as he sipped his coffee and stared out the window with the expression of a man wondering whether to jump or just close the window.
But the routine was always the same. The editor-in-chief—Mr. Petrov, a man with the face of a sleepy crocodile and the work ethic of a dictator—used to accustom him to the office. There, in the dimly lit room, full of documents, sticky notes, and the faint smell of spilled coffee, Dancho always received his sentence: “We have a hole to fill. Dancho, write an article. And make sure it’s ‘hit’! People need to be inspired!”
This “inspire” sounded to Dancho’s ears like a bell toll of disaster. Once he tried to object:
—Mr. Petrov, I think inspiration is overrated. Maybe people just want to live their lives without being inspired every second?
Petrov looked at him as if he had just suggested serving nail soup in the chair. “Dancho, if we don’t inspire, we don’t exist. Remember that.”
So Dancho would return to his desk, open a blank document, and stare at the cursor that was blinking mockingly. He imagined that if that cursor could talk, it would say, “Well, what are you going to do to me now, huh? Do you have any ideas, or are you going to stay here until your legs go numb?”
Dancho hated the course. He also hated the keywords he had to insert into the text. “Happiness,” “success,” “productivity”—each of them sounded like a hollow shell. But he knew that if he didn’t include them, Mr. Petrov would call him back and lecture him on “SEO optimization as the backbone of our ecosystem.”
“What ecosystem?” Dancho thought. “This is just a website that tricks people into clicking on headlines like ‘10 Ways to Become a Millionaire Before You’re 30,’ when in reality the article said, ‘Start working. Save. Hope.’”
But still, he wrote. Somewhere between the fourth and fifth cups of coffee, Dancho found the strength to compose something that was so superficial that if it were a river, you could cross it with dry shoes.
“Life is like a puzzle,” he once wrote. “Sometimes the missing piece is right in front of you. You just have to look around.”
“What puzzle?” he asked himself. “Life is more like a mess of puzzles that will never fit together.” But these thoughts did not make it into the articles.
When the article was ready, Dancho would send the file to Petrov and prepare for the inevitable feedback.
“Dancho, it’s very good, but can you add a little more positivity?” Petrov would say.
“A little more positivity? What should I write that life is like an endless string of miracles?” Dancho asked himself as he edited his text, adding unnecessarily smiling metaphors.
But the greatest horror for him was when he had to write articles with a personal tone. “Tell a story from your own life that will inspire readers,” was the order. Dancho told stories, of course, but his stories were so fake that even he sometimes wondered if he might not be living in a parallel reality.
“One morning I woke up and decided to change my life,” he once wrote. The truth was that he had simply been late for work that morning because the coffee maker had broken and he had to boil water on the stove. But Petrov approved of the article, calling it “a true victory of the human spirit.”
One day, during his lunch break, Dancho shared with his colleague Maria what he thought of the work.
“You know, Maria, I think if I read one more article about how to ‘find myself,’ I’ll be lost forever. ”
Maria laughed and said,
“Dancho, don’t worry. One day you’ll get so good that you’ll be able to write these articles without ever reading them. ”
That didn’t comfort him. If anything, it made him feel even worse.
One day, after spending a whole week writing articles about “work-life balance”—a topic he personally considered a myth—Dancho decided to write something different. Something real. He opened a new document and began:
“The man who didn’t like writing articles, but had to. This is a story about me — an editor at a motivation website who has no motivation himself.”
Dancho wrote everything he thought about. About the emptiness of clichés, about the falsehood of positive messages, about his own struggle to find meaning in this endless series of words.
He sent the text to Petrov without even thinking about the consequences. The day passed and he waited for the verdict. But nothing happened. Not a single email, not a single call to the office.
The next day, however, Dancho noticed that his article had been published. With the title: “The Truth Behind Motivation: Confessions of an Editor.” And the most surprising thing? The article became extremely popular. The comments under it were full of thanks and approval.
“This is the most honest article I’ve ever read,” someone wrote.
“Finally something different!” added another.
Petrov even sent him an email: “Dancho, great work. Write more like this! Readers love them.”
Dancho laughed. Was this the end of his suffering or the beginning of a new level of absurdity? He didn’t know. But for the first time in a long time, he felt that writing might not be so bad — as long as you can afford to be honest.
