"Comparison is the thief of joy."
I have no idea who said that, it's one of those quotes that floats around without providence but I repeat it to myself, constantly. I need the reminder, because I struggle with comparing myself to other people. Of course, I intellectually know that we are all on our own journeys and it's an unrealistic, unhelpful practice to compare myself to someone else, but I do it anyway.
Of course, twitter and other social media is an absolute nightmare. Again, I understand, intellectually, that when I compare myself to people's tweets, I'm comparing my everyday to their highlight reel, but it still worms its way in my chest and makes me feel bad anyway.
So I work on it. I am happy for my friends when they achieve success, and I work at it. I say congratulations and I smile for them until I mean it. I try to exhale the bad feelings, and when it gets really twisted in my brain I put my phone on do not disturb and go for a long, cleansing run.
One thing I remember is that sometimes, comparison makes me feel good. I see some honest soul tweet about their rejection streak, or they share their query statistics and mine are better--and I feel good--I have to fight that too. Because, again, it doesn't matter. The fact I have more full requests than someone else doesn't mean I'm going to move forward in my writing dreams faster than anyone else--odds are good it's all going to end in rejection, anyway. The real win, at this point, is for me to honestly see my journey on it's own terms, and be ok with where I am, and what I've accomplished.
One way I take a stand against this is NOT sharing my own querying stuff. Sure, I post about the diligence--about moving forward with the process, especially since I've almost talked myself out of it--and I try to embody the ideals I want people to have--diligence, getting back up once you've been knocked down, and never giving up. But I don't post about my victories--because I don't want to play that game.
