By Comparison

A friend and I had a recent conversation about comparing ourselves to others. Doesn’t matter to whom, just that we have these tendencies. We all—every one of us—do it, whether we mean to or not.

We compare ourselves as wives, as mothers, as daughters, as housekeepers, as beauty queens, as authors (yeah, even if you aren’t one), as scholars, as… everything. It’s so easy to look at those around us and see their strengths as our faults. Or if not faults, at least something different than what they really are.

That person is thinner than me.

That one is more beautiful.

That person is stronger, is more fit.

That person is smarter.

That person must be better at ____ because they are on the path to (or have already found) success.

On my best day, I couldn’t even compare to____.

Why do we do this to ourselves? Life is about progress, about moving forward and growing as a person with each new day. There are no two people on this whole entire planet who have the exact same lives or circumstances. Think about it. There are billions of people on earth. And no one—NO ONE—is the same as anyone else. So why do we torture ourselves with comparisons?

I could look at the career paths of 500 different authors, and they are all different. Does that mean I’m not as good an author as them? Or that I should try to be like them? Or that I should want to? No, it does not. What it means (at least to me) is that each of them had the determination, the strength, the timing, the work, the…whatever else was necessary, to move forward on their path.

And guess what? I have that too. The difference is that I am me, and they are them, and we will never, ever be the same. And that’s how it should be.

Success isn’t just a destination, it’s a journey, an individual one. When and how and where we finally reach our final goal may be a complete mystery, but that’s the beauty of it. Don’t you think? A gift we an anticipate, a final outcome we will be individually proud of because no one knows more than us just what it took to get to that point.

And that, my friends, will make it all the more sweet. Don’t you think?

Who Are You Again?

Question. By show of hands (or comments—either way) how many of you (my readers) are writers (as in writing, revising, submitting with the hope of being published) and who are just interested readers who are completely supportive and awesome because you keep coming back? (And could I write a longer sentence with more parentheticals? Wait. Don’t answer that.)

I’m just wondering. There is no right or wrong answer, really. Just, you know, when I’m preparing my posts, it helps to know my audience. And I think it’s really important to know your audience well.  So who are you? Cuz I know you’re not all writers wanting to know about the publishing world. Some are. But I also know there are a bazillion writing blogs out there. Agent blogs. Author blogs. Publisher blogs. Book blogs. Goodreads, Shelfari. A. Lot.

I’ve always been a big believer in writing from the heart. So I do. And I don’t intend to change that. I could easily jump on a hundred different bandwagons, join blogfests, color my hair purple (wait, did that already), and rethink my content according to supply and demand. (Wow, that makes me sound like a grocery store.)

 However, writing and the publishing industry are both a big part of my life, and I do blog about them from time to time. I try not to focus solely on those things, because I know not everyone wants to read about them constantly. But today I’m wondering.

Who are you? And what brings you back here time and again? Just curious.  

Thanks for the feedback.

Who We Are

For all my ranting about love and how terrible it is to watch the hearts of our children break when they’re let down (probably a number of times throughout their childhood), I also have to admit that these experiences tend to be defining moments—the ones that make us who we are or will grow up to be. Yes?

Heartache tends to make the strong stronger, and the weak, well, weaker. And it’s not so much about how our hearts are broken or by whom, so much as how we handle it and what we choose to do with the experience.

Watching my kids has taught me a lot about life. Say I’m teaching them to roller skate. They fall down and get hurt, skin their knee or something and most of the time, all they need is a kiss from their mom or dad to take the pain away (and okay, maybe a doctor visit on extreme occasions). And then, once they’re healed, they get back up and work twice as hard to figure out those dang shoes with wheels. They don’t forget about their hurt or what caused it, but instead choose to learn from it. Sometimes they’re able to avoid or prevent similar situations, and sometimes they aren’t. But at least they know how to deal with whatever comes. And so do I.

Or, okay, if we don’t know how to deal with it, we know how NOT to deal with it. Yeah?


Guess I have something in common with Forrest Gump's mother, who said, "Don't ever let anyone tell you they're better than you, Forrest. If God wanted us all to be the same, he'd have given us all braces on our legs." 

I understand that this might even be an unusual way to look at life’s ups and downs. But I’m an optimist, an idealist even. And I believe that learning how to deal with heartache is half of life’s biggest battle. (The other half being that we learn how to deal with love.)

Do you agree? Not agree? Am I off my rocker?