Glass Half Full...Or Not Full Enough

NOTE: This piece was written within the first 2 weeks of me joining substack (Yea….it definitely got to me)

There are checkpoints in life.

You achieve something you want…and then you want more.

You reach the next checkpoint.

But then there are other checkpoints around you.

They’re fancier and more impressive.

You look at yours and all of a sudden it’s not worth it anymore.

Why?

Because now you want to do what others are doing.

Get lost in the noise.

In the crowd.

You want it.

Sure, your glass may be half full…but it’s not full enough.

That’s what I felt when I joined Substack.

Everyone around me was so talented that I felt intimidated. That my words wouldn’t matter because there would always be better ones out there. I believed that what I wanted to share wasn’t enough and that others’ work was more exciting.

I was afraid that I’d had to change what I had already planned to do, to somehow get the same numbers others did.

Yup, it got to me.

The numbers always do.

And for a while, it felt that they defined me.

Even before I started writing again, I mentally prepared myself: I will love what I write. I won’t let anything get to me.

That mantra was thrown out the window real fast.

It got to me like the train that hit Peter in Spiderman: Far From Home.

I should’ve seen it coming.

But I didn’t.

And…I wasn’t even surprised.

I forgot everything and tried to get that glass full enough.

I got lost in it all because I didn’t know what truly I wanted.

My mind was a mess.

I gave up on whatever havoc was brewing inside my head and settled with the original plan.

Staying true to myself.

The glass may not be full enough right now…but it will be soon. And that would be when my checkpoint matters to me, not everyone else’s.