So, I’ve been wondering lately if it’s time to give up.
Most of the time, I feel like a failure. It’s tiring and it feels terrible, and what’s worse is that I know most of it is self-inflicted. It’s a feeling I’ve carried a good part of my life, a combination of anxiety, a fear of failure, and a self-consciousness that teeters into self-loathing. Combined with a desire for acceptance and pleasing people, it becomes a homemade toxic stew.
I don’t know where this comes from, other than my head mostly, where small things become Godzilla-sized kaiju, stomping and unleashing radioactive destruction across the Tokyo of my mind.
Acceptance of the way things are, and recognizing what isn’t, can be hard. Here are some of the things I fail at:
Writing (and other creative endeavors): This is the first newsletter I’ve written since January. That’s seven months. I’d like to say I’ve been writing other things in that time, but I haven’t. There are plenty of excuses I can make, but those are just excuses. I question whether I even have anything to say. I question even more whether anyone cares. I rarely get comments or shares here. My podcasts get some feedback, but that’s more thanks to being part of a larger, popular network—no one I actually know even listens to them. I’m part of group chats and have considered leaving them at one time or another because I often don’t get responses there, either. I shout into the void, and the void shrugs.
Work: I’m currently unemployed, which actually isn’t what stresses me. I’ve been out of work before, and we’ve always been able to survive one way or the other. Freelance work goes dry, and then comes in all at once. I eventually find a job, hopefully in my field but not always. And there’s where the concern come in. I’m getting older, and I haven’t advanced in the way a lot of my contemporaries have. Combined with freelancing, this looks like standing still to a lot of employers. Ageism is a real thing. Which begs two questions: What have I been doing with my professional life? And can I even get a job anymore?
Friends: When I first started junior high, I was adopted by a group of super-cool kids. Earrings and New Wave/Punk hair and they smoked cigarettes (and other things). I’d never really had friends before, and spent a lot of time alone on the playground when I wasn’t fielding taunts like “nerd” and “fag” and dodging actual balls lobbed at me. (I liked to read.) Within a couple of weeks, this super-group met my sister and they stopped being my friends. We were still friendly, but we didn’t hang out. The same thing happened again in high school.
My sister is much more fun and interesting than I am.
Somewhere along the way I developed this idea that people don’t really like me, they just tolerate me. I know this isn’t always true (I have a handful of people I know I could call to bail me out of jail at any time of night, and I doubt my wife has just been a glutton for punishment the last couple of decades). I think I make a good impression, but that impression starts to tarnish with time. (I’m sure this particular newsletter will help). To know me is to wonder how to tactfully slip away.
There are other tiny things that build up, like plaque in a struggling heart valve, but it can all be boiled down to one thing: I’m easily discouraged. And sometimes giving up sounds so much easier. Almost restful. Expectations, especially the ones that might be unrealistic, seem much less heavy when you set them down.
Work? Just find a job, any job, eat some shit and don’t worry about it. At least it’s a paycheck.
Writing? Maybe I’m not the writer I thought I was, or thought I could be. Ambitions fade like forgotten photos if you just let them go. You’ll look back at them someday and squint, trying to recognize the features that have become bare outlines of someone you used to know.
Friends? Maybe I need to remember there’s a difference between Friends and People I Know. I have good friends, and that’s important. Why should I worry about acquaintances who barely know me? Who don’t seem to want to know me? It’s a form of rejection and I hate it, so why do I pursue it? Relative isolation is easier. No one can ignore me if I beat them to it.
But. But but but. I love having friends. I treasure having friends like a greedy dragon with a hoarding problem. I want to work, and I want that work to be meaningful and at least a little fulfilling. I write—and take photos and podcast and whatever—because I see things I want to share.
And that’s good. Right?
So today, I’m not giving up. I’m not going to go charging up any hills, because I’m tired, but I’m not giving up. And that’s something. And it’s for me. And that in itself feels like something that’s Not Failure.
Something to build on.
I hear you about the “no one from my real life actually listens to my podcast” phenomenon! Other than the buddy who makes the show with me, natch. My own version of “shouting into the void” involves fixating on basically two “big idea” stories that I occasionally try to write, over and over again for nearly the past twenty years. I know we should “create for ourselves first,” but we also only want to create so we can share that creation, right? So yeah: I get it, man. I also noticed a while back that I was the person keeping most of my “friendships” active: if I didn’t call or text or email, then just...nothing would happen. So, I started pulling back, seeing who would reach out to me instead. That’s had some results :)
Knave! No further self-pitying stuff! I WILL CHASE YOU ABOUT, WAVING SWORDS!
I am sorry you're having trouble with discouragement. There's not much I can offer as advice -- I'm the opposite of wise, so I never have anything worthwhile to share. But maybe you should get a book of writing prompts and use that to keep exercising the writing muscles...