COMPARING

I was having an interesting conversation with my husband Game boy earlier about the topic of comparing yourself with others. Of course, I've done this before. It's impossible to find a person that hasn't done this. It's funny because I was comparing myself to my sister some time before the conversation. She has a great job and is making a good living... compared to me; I'm not making any money. I started thinking about my past and how I was making a decent amount of money then and I would go almost every weekend to spend much of it on silly things I didn't need. I was a shopaholic. I had realized it some time before I quit my job. I was actually getting better at it. Yet, earlier when I thought of it, I missed it. It's terrible to admit, but the feeling was brief. Then I thought about if I had a job now, would I be able to control myself from going back to being a shopaholic? I realized that I haven't needed that fake happy feeling that you get when you buy things you don't need. I have the basic necessities now and that's all I need.

Coming back to the topic of comparing myself, Game boy asked me how I would handle meeting a person who was younger than me and successful at fiction writing. I said that I can handle it in two ways, either I would get jealous and angry or I can learn from it and motivate myself to get to that level. I would like to think that I would do the latter because I have been given this opportunity and time to put all of my skills and effort into writing. I can't and I won't let that slow me down. There are famous people (alive and dead) who have started late in life doing what they loved and they happened to be successful at it. I recently learned about the author Janet Finch, who woke up on her 21st birthday knowing that she was going to be an author, yet she didn't publish until she was 39. I happen to be turning 39 this year and I am more motivated than ever before.