John Meyer realized about 8 years before I did that there’s no such thing as the real world. Though I’m quite a different person than I was in high school, some of the mentality and perception of people and status and worth is still there, just in a different form.
I’m quite the blog creeper. I lurk in the shadows. I listen, consume, emulsify, and then come here and think aloud. Or I read it aloud to my husband, who really cares much less than I’d like to admit. But you know what would be more productive? To engage. Conversate. (Google, I make a motion to turn noun conversation into verb conversate. It’s the infinitive form of conversing).
But in case you spend your webby hours at cool places like spotify or twitter or Huffington or anywhere else I regularly peer into but become overwhelmed by, there’s a group of women writing in a way that changes hearts and minds. There’s Rachel Held Evans, who gives a voice to Christian women by proclaiming that we do, indeed, have a voice. And Jen Hatmaker, who took the fork in the road that I wanted to take. Today, I saw on twitter that they’ve become cyber-buddies (is cyber still used? Did that get voted out in 1998?). They’re friends. BFF. I walk into the cafeteria, and there they are, eating, laughing, changing the world. They’re saving a seat for Kristen Howerton, who also mentions both of these ladies in her well-followed blog.
And now, instead of me hoping to become webby friends and peers, they’re suddenly the cool girls club. My own little version of celebrity, only 80% of the population wouldn’t know them by name unless they’re in my particular sub-sect (meaning the nerdy-reading type that loves Jesus). I want to sit down with my packed lunch and ask how the Spanish test went. I want to find out what their topics for the research paper will be. I want to laugh at their jokes (we ARE hilarious) and tease about our obvious shortcomings in a way that only friends have a right to do.
But the sheer number of people who do read and love their work is large; the comment section runs on and on. Who am I to offer a thought, a tidbit? (Especially because they’ve said it so well already.) I seriously feel so high school. About commenting on a blog. Seriously, self. Get. Over. Yourself.
As I aspire do more things I love, I realize now that I need to get over my celebrity view of success. I need to stop wanting to be “one of them” and start simply doing what I do, but better. (Starting with: stop treating the blog as a diary and start offering real content. Starting tomorrow.). I need to create a measuring stick so that I can get better, but it need not carry the face of another woman at the top. I don’t want to be the red-headed version of someone else. So the mind games have got to quit.
I told KLR this week that I need to get over myself if I want to do my “other things”. I need to realize that being published in Time isn’t my success mark. I can do things small, and well, and allow myself a sense of satisfaction. If I only shoot large, I’ll never jump. I’ll never complete a marathon if I don’t go out and build a good 3-mile base run. And those 3-milers are home. Those 3 miles may not stretch me, but they build my foundation.
So I tell my internal struggle, my wavering from not-good-enough to too-prideful-to-try, to STOP. Just put on your running shoes and see how many miles you can get in today. Then, tomorrow, add one.
Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original. (Gal 5:25-26)