Tag: insecurity

  • Mind Willing, Body Weak

    Mind Willing, Body Weak – On writing and failure and dealing with a chronic illness. via @emilykeeler82

    This is a post about writing when you’re sick. Doing anything when you’re sick, really.

    It’s something I’ve wanted to open up about for a long time. And it’s also one of the reasons I don’t blog as often as I used to.

    (Related note: I’m in the process of moving some of those old blogs over to this new site, but that will be a slow process, as you’ll soon find out.)

    I have a chronic illness that…

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  • Q&A: Sometimes when I sit down to read a book, I get distracted by how much better/worse the book is from my WIP. Is this normal? Does this ever happen to you?

    Anonymous asked:

    Q&A: Sometimes when I sit down to read a book, I get distracted by how much better/worse the book is from my WIP. Is this normal? Does this ever happen to you?

    Only all the time!

    That feeling you’re feeling–get a good feel for it. Because its name is Insecurity, and the next time you sense it hanging around, you’ll want to give it the holiest of all holy smack downs.

    Think of Insecurity as little mind roaches. (I know. That IS a disgusting metaphor!) It scurries around, hiding in the darkest crevices of your psyche, carrying all sorts of disease and pestilence. 

    And the more you feed it, the more it breeds, dude. Like, it’s not even funny. 

    So now you’ve got millions of these little mind-roaches scurrying around inside your mind, telling you to compare yourself to other people.

    Sometimes you’ll come out ahead. You’ll look at your work and compare it to theirs, and your work will come out ahead. This is called Pride.

    Sometimes you’ll come out on the losing side. You’ll look at your work and compare it to theirs, and your work will look like a two-year-old’s macaroni art compared to their Picasso. This is called Jealousy.

    Insecurity’s only goal is to measure itself against other people. It wants to know how it measures up–that you measure up–against everything else. And when that happens, you’re so consumed by these little measuring bugs that you never let yourself do or be anything else. 

    Have you ever tried to be happy for someone while at the same time mulling over what her success means for your success? It can’t be done. You can either be insecure or happy, but you can’t be both. 

    So the next time you sit down to read a book, read the book. And don’t compare it to anything. Set yourself aside, and give someone else your full attention for a few minutes. 

    This is SO much harder to do than to type, by the way. You’ll probably need some practice at it. But eventually you’ll get back to that place where you can place your work and someone else’s work side by side and let both be OK, imperfections and all.