Don't Compare and Don't Compete

"To compare yourself with others is toxic, unhealthy and damaging to your self-esteem and self image. Constantly trying to compete with others will drain so much energy out of you. The best thing you could do for yourself is to realize that:

“True nobility it is not about being better than anyone else. It is about being better than you used to be. “

-- Wayne Dyer"

[Entire quote from this blog post.]

As soon as I read this I thought of the writing community.

Jealousy among writers is rife. We have a habit, don't you think, of being very supportive - but also of being very judgemental (both on ourselves and others).

I get it. I do it. I'm guilty of looking at another writer's blog comments, agent requests, book deal(s), fan mail, money in the bank... the list of things I have envied in someone else's life is endless. But I work hard not to dwell in that place. I agree with the above quote. It's unhealthy.

But something else occurred to me today that I wanted to share with you.

If I was going to have their blog / agent / editor / bank account, I would also have to have written their book.

And if was doing that, who would write mine?

Remember this quote from Neil Gaiman?

"Start telling the stories that only you can tell, because there’ll always be better writers than you and there’ll always be smarter writers than you. There will always be people who are much better at doing this or doing that - but you are the only you.

Take Tarantino. You can criticize everything that Quentin does - but nobody writes Tarantino stuff like Tarantino. He is the best Tarantino writer there is, and that was actually the thing that people responded to - they’re going ‘this is an individual writing with his own point of view’.

There are better writers than me out there, there are smarter writers, there are people who can plot better - there are all those kinds of things, but there’s nobody who can write a Neil Gaiman story like I can."

-Neil Gaiman

So, yeah, I'm leaning a lot on quotes from other people today, but that's because I think they're true.

You are the only you. Being jealous of someone else will hurt you. But, in a little way, it would hurt me too - because who would write your stories if you weren't doing it?

Your Turn: Let's dream big! Forget about the person whose life you wish you had - tell us what you want YOUR life to look like. Tell us your dreams. Then we can watch them come true!