So, I'm often plagued by the fear that I'm not truly good at anything. Don't get me wrong, I'm ok at lots of stuff, but I don't know that I'm truly good at anything(except for making French Toast, I will own your soul with the deliciousness of my French Toast!). I try to be funny, only to second guess the words coming out of my mouth. I take random amounts of time researching new projects, never sure if I'll ever actually complete them. I come up with ideas for things I'm going to do someday, but never take time to find out how to accomplish them.
I suppose I shouldn't say that I'm afraid of not being good at anything, but rather I'm afraid that I don't have the attention span to BECOME good at anything. I don't find myself interested in the same things for much longer than a month or two. Unfortunately for me, that's not usually long enough to master a craft (but if it was, I would so be the coolest Jack of All Trades. "You can fix cars and computers, you make your own clothes AND you own a 5 star restaurant?!"). About the only thing I have been consistently working on for the last 2 years is learning how to cook. Lucky for me, I like my food. But other than a few select dishes, I don't really think I've mastered anything.
If I'm being completely honest, I imagine this fear stems from an irrational need to please people around me. I've always felt a little awkward around people. I've tried to be part of various groups, only to find that I never truly fit in. I've been lucky to make a few friends, but almost always, other people have instigated the relationship. I've tried to figure out a formula for relationships (1 boy + 1girl / money x rejection = sadness?), but sadly there are too many external factors that influence how we interact with one another.
So, in a way, this is yet another of those attempts to fit in. I like that I can type words on my computer, and I don't have someone making fun of me because I'm a nerd (although if I actually get some readers, that might just change...). So here's a pledge to you, the reader. I will try and make what I have to say worth reading. If I fall short, if I don't succeed, or if I can't maintain interest for longer than a month, then I will officially stop trying to be a "blogger". But, if by some small miracle, we can have an internet relationship, I'm interested in knowing what you have to say. I want to know what your opinion of me is, and I hope you're able to be honest. I want to entertain you, as well as finally conquer my own fears of rejection and failure.
Oh, and if I inadvertently become famous in the process, I won't mind.
John
2 comments:
Hey, bro! Good to see you on here! I had a very successful "rant blog" a while ago that got some 16,000 reads in about 2 years? Something like that. In any case, my experience is that if you are very honest about your experiences, you rant and rave a little (but not too much), you include an opening (small) picture for each post (be sure it isn't copywritten), and you go to other blogs and become active in the blog community you will get more reads and more comments.
If you're just on here to write and see what happens, I know several people who've had varying degrees of success with that. However, if that's what you want, maybe the "success" (in terms of readership, at least) doesn't really matter anyway.
Also, with Google Reader and the like people don't always visit your blog, so blogpatrol.com for example can't count all the people who read you frequently if they don't visit your site. Thus, even if you don't get a lot of comments and blogpatrol says you don't have a lot of visits, you may yet have a good following! (Also, it takes a little time for that to develop.)
Anyway, good luck, bro! Love you!
I've been wondering lately why almost everyone fears getting involved in and finishing things. I think maybe it's because we tie up the concept of finishing with all the other Shoulds in our lives: Diligent People get up at 6:30am, run 3 miles, have a bracing cold shower, and so on. But we've tried most of those things once or twice and didn't like them. So we always feel inadequate, and we shy away from things that Diligent People do.
And in our heads, finishing projects means tying up *ALL* the loose ends until they're perfect. We think the "core" of the project (the part that we actually want to do: the actual rolling paint on the middle of the walls with the big roller) will take an hour. It actually takes 3 to do that and the prep and corner-painting and cleanup. But we're afraid it'll take 10. So we skimp on the prep, do one and a half hours, panic and give up.
The big turning point for me was starting small and being hell-bent on finishing little tiny projects without them being perfect. Clean the bathroom sink: grab sponge and cleanser, wipe down quickly, don't get sucked into cleaning every crevice, rinse, put stuff away. Congratulate self and move on. Not perfect, but done. Finishing stuff feels AMAZING. Then I worked up to bigger projects, where I had to fend off suggestions from other people that were good ideas but which had the potential to block or derail the project.
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