Do You Get Jealous Of Other Writers? I Got Some Harsh Advice For You
Do You Get Jealous Of Other Writers? I Got Some Harsh Advice For You
Blogging lesson 16 of 150
“I just can’t believe they make money writing CRAP like that!”
A fellow Medium writer told me this the other day.
We were lamenting together about how there’s so much crap on Medium.
So much gar-bage.
“And it actually gets views!” they said.
All I could do was nod my head in agreement. I’ve been on Medium for 6 years now (wow!) and it was somewhat cathartic to listen to somebody go through all the emotions that I did back then.
In short, the problem is jealousy.
“How do THEY get views and I don’t?”
I get it.
This person had a point. And guess what?
I get jealous of other creators all the damn time. So how do we feel better?
How do we let it go and just focus on our thing?
Block The Shit Out Of Them
“If your head is wax, don’t walk in the sun.”
- Ben Franklin
If you know you have a problem with jealousy, make it so your odds of getting jealous go down significantly.
Block the shit out of people.
It doesn’t make you a bad person to do this either.
Look, social media is designed to give us exactly what we want. If we can’t help but check on the profiles of people we’re jealous of 24/7 365, then social media is going to keep showing us, infinitely, the people we can’t stop looking at.
We need to take evasive action.
We have to block the shit out of people.
Doesn’t This Hurt Us If We Want To Learn How To Write Better?
It might.
I’ve blocked a lot of brilliant writers.
I probably could learn a lot from them.
But what’s better:
Being a slightly better miserable writer, or
Being a slightly worse happy writer?
I’d rather be happy than miserable.
Which brings us to our final question.
Why are we even freakin doing this in the first place?
The Writers You’re Following Are Probably Miserable
“I felt so bad for him.”
My friend, after he had a conversation with a top writer who EVERYBODY KNOWS, said that to me.
The guy he spoke to was talking about all the projects he was about to take on.
And my friend, in his wisdom, knew that this was a fast-track to mental hell.
More projects. More work. More dynasty-building.
Your favorite writers, who seem to be on every platform known to man all at once, aren’t fucking happy.
“Indiana, let it go.”
That’s what Indiana Jones’ Dad said in The Last Crusade.
When are you going to let it go, too?
The people you look up to aren’t happy.
Last year I made more money than I’ve ever made in my life.
It would’ve made Tom from 6 years ago jump out of his skin.
But I’ve gotten used to it. I brush it off like it’s nothing now.
And guess what? The most important part of life — yaknow, the “living” part — is something I feel way behind on.
Sure, I hustled. I made money. I am happy that I’m financially free.
But it feels hollow to me.
And it probably feels hollow for a lot of the people at the top, too.
So your heroes stand on a pedestal of bullshit.
It stinks where they are.
You really want to go there?
Let it go.
Sure, chase your goal and try to impact as many people as you can, but if you don’t become some world-famous writer in the process, just understand something…
You probably don’t want it anyway.
That’s our last mindset lesson for a while.
See you Wednesday.
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Do You Get Jealous Of Other Writers? I Got Some Harsh Advice For You was originally published in 150 Days To Blogging Mastery on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.