Loving myself even when no one recognizes my value

I was recently in charge of a unique fundraising event and managed to creatively connect my magazine, DMV Shorts Magazine, with the event. Surf Jaguars, a local band from Fairfax County, Virginia, was gracious enough to donate their time and talent to help us raise money for a good cause. (We were also treated to the soulful sounds of Bannister Weston Chaava, another local musician.)

We sold tickets to the event and also added an extra – ticket plus gift. The gift was a copy of DMV Shorts Magazine that had been published a few years back. It contained a handsome spread on the band. I was proud of my work back then and remain staunchly proud of everything I accomplished years later.

When I originally published that issue of DMV Shorts Magazine, it was 2021. I worked like a dog promoting my fledgling, beautiful, little magazine, though in hindsight, not nearly as aggressively as I market things today. Back then in 2021, I made the stupid assumption that my friends, family, local neighbors, and people from the community would automatically support me simply because they know me and I’m a good person in society. I’m extremely well connected with people from many different disciplines. For me, it was a given that I’d receive support for a project I had initiated, particularly after selflessly giving my support to others for so many years.

Everyone everywhere always supports the kids with the lemonade stands, the lovely stay-at-home-moms who bake cookies and cakes from home, and all kinds of creative and ingenious startups.

Just today, August 4, 2026, I learned about a teen from our local high school whose business, without a license or any of the registrations and formalities I’ve had to do over the years, had grown so exponentially and wildly through his haircutting service offering boys and men haircuts from his own bedroom, that he managed to open an actual little salon. This was achieved only because he got support from paying customers who believed in the skills of an unknown young man. His social media account is very small, but he had enough loyalty both on and offline that told customers to trust this young man. Not even 20 years old and already reaching milestones I will probably never see in my life.

I’ve never been bitter about seeing people succeed in their respective businesses and startups and in fact, I have been incredibly, almost sickeningly sweet laying on the praise and kudos to every single person. I always knew the golden rule of treating people how you want to be treated. I thought, naively, that if I would support businesses in any way I could, whether through sincere praise, social media shoutouts, purchases, or any other ways I invent to honor people, perhaps one day, I could possibly see a fraction of that goodness and success return to me.

I never had it in me to be bitter or angry because that is more of an active emotion that requires me to voluntarily want to be mad. I didn’t want to do that. I took things more passively by being very sad, crying, thinking sad thoughts, and replaying solo existentialist conversations in my head, trying to create some sort of logic that didn’t exist.

I tried to rationalize to myself why others so easily and so effortlessly achieved so much success, on many occasions, with products and services far inferior to mine. But no matter what I thought, I was stuck with the painful reality that it’s never what I knew, but who I knew. I could be the smartest, brightest, most charismatic person knocking myself out selling DMV Shorts Magazine, my writing, or any of my creative services. None of that would matter because I’ve only had a small handful of people on my side who usually purchased out of pity and not because of a genuine interest in my work or talents. I could never sustain a business, let alone attempt to support myself, with a business built using a framework of fragile emotion and peoples’ pity handouts. And yet, those are the cards that were dealt to me, over and over, for years on end.

Any person who would ever know the 10 million things I’ve done throughout my entire life to create and sustain a business would probably be bewildered by my lack of success and failures because each and every one of my marketing and promotional ideas has been incredible, stupendous, imaginative, and unique – much like the way I am as a person. The math simply does not add up. And that is where I have remained – always with the short end of the stick carrying my years of thoughtful innovations in business while people with far less talent and professionalism coasted their way to successful, profitable businesses that people naturally referred through word of mouth.

Only God knows his reasons why he gave me the type of enviable, rich talents that he did minus the success. Only God could understand and see the big picture in my life as to why I was intended to suffer financially throughout my entire adult life, unable to secure a job doing the very thing I was blessed to do so creatively unlike any other human being – through writing. Only God could soothe my hurt soul as I’ve continuously faced the humiliation and unfair situation of knowing I am overqualified as an intellectual, brainy, highly intelligent law school graduate who can’t even hold a steady job providing administrative clerical work to a company for $18 an hour.

My life is just one aggressive hustle after another, always fighting anyone and everything to make a dollar and survive while trying to raise two daughters in a loving environment that is filled with the sanctity of kindness, love, and peace surrounded by our deep faith in God. I am reminded that a lesser person in my situation would have turned to alcoholism, drugs, sex work, or any other crazy solution to life’s unfairness. I am comforted by my own strength. Being stubborn has cost me relationships and jobs, but it has also saved my life as I’ve unequivocally, stubbornly, staunchly, with unwavering physical and emotional strength, decided to keep persevering in life despite my struggles by fighting the good fight of faith.

Yes, the solution for me is always God because I’ve reached the point in my life where I don’t get mad anymore at the injustices in my life. There are too many to count. Any kind of business idea I’ve ever had and the countless times I’ve put so much personal enthusiasm, energy, and good faith into promoting my services and goods has resulted in the equivalent of a disappointing mouse trap – too lame to capture the rapid success that others so easily get.

My thoughts are not meant to detail my life as a woe-is-me narrative to garner sympathy or money or any type of pity responses. None of that is of value to me. The important thing is for you to carefully review the way I’ve described my personal difficulties in business and possibly evaluate and take stock of your own personal life and business, if you have one. Have you struggled the way I have? Have you had people in your corner rooting you on, encouraging you, sincerely believing in your products or services? Have people gone out of their way to hire you, purchase your items, and tell other people about what a fab job you do in business without begging them, bribing them with cash, or otherwise getting people to promote you?

It’s not a matter of comparing where the grass is greener, but more so taking an honest look at what you have. I don’t think I’ve ever met a business owner like myself who has spent their entire adulthood trying to promote their goods and services and never getting out of hobby-mode despite decades of trying. Not that I necessarily enjoy being a model of business failure to get other people to appreciate what they have, but if my sad example can help one person be more grateful, I’ll ironically consider that a success for me – ironic because I had to fail many times to get others to recognize the value they have in their own lives.

As a mother, business owner, and human being, I just feel weary at spinning my wheels in vain with such innocent hope and enthusiasm, practically begging people to buy DMV Shorts Magazine or to hire me as a writer, whether as a consultant or employee. As I recall a scripture to calm me down, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” - Matthew 11:28, I am reminded of a simple medicine I practice each day.

While other people are doing stretches or yoga or meditation, I simply remind myself of how special I am and how much God loves me, despite the fact that no one wants my professional work. While I may never fully understand why on earth God would bless me with luscious ideas and creative projects only to be presented to a callous, uncaring, apathetic world that prefers to patronize people with significantly less talent than me, I understand one thing that was anointed to me at birth: I am loved.

I have struggled with the concept of not being loved pretty much my entire life, for numerous reasons, but the song that keeps playing in my head isn’t the World Cup theme song sung by Shakira, as catchy and fun as it was. It is that I was destined to be loved from the second I entered this world. My parents named me Amanda, which means “worthy of love,” as a symbolic and actual reminder that in fact, I am worthy of being loved, even if people choose not to show it – in this case, by disregarding my talents and not purchasing my writing or not hiring me to write or create.

Perhaps the biggest lesson of my life isn’t to figure out better ways of soliciting a genuine response to DMV Shorts Magazine, but a more ethereal one that cleanses my heart each morning and reminds me that I am worthy of love because the almighty father loves me immensely. Each day is a blank canvas for me. I can always make the choice to smile and do my best and to leave the rest up to God.

As long as I have his love, I am complete, even as I struggle supporting myself finding professional work and have never managed to get people genuinely interested in my writing, designs, or creativity.

Only God matters. I know he is in my corner fighting my battles even when I can’t see progress with my human eyes. When I die, I hope my writing is finally spread far and wide and I sincerely hope people enjoy the things I came up with. No matter what I go through, both personally and professionally, my hope is that my daughters realize my true heart every time I fail and refuse to give up on myself.