Learning Not To Compare

In September 2013 I took a position as a full-time journalist for WP Tavern. I spend most of my waking hours thinking about writing, narrowing down what to write and working hard to distill news/events and make them interesting. I still have so much to learn. Becoming a better writer isn’t instant; it takes time. One of the biggest pitfalls I’ve found is comparing myself to others. It’s the quickest way to get discouraged and waste half an hour in tears.

There’s a difference between learning from other’s work and holding yourself up to it with a red pen, marking all the places where you fall short. Comparison is paralyzing.

I read this a long time ago, but it’s never meant more to me than it does now:

If I thought I had to say it better than anybody else, I’d never start. Better or worse is immaterial. The thing is that it has to be said, by me. We each have to say it, to say it in our own way. Not of our own will, but as it comes out through us. Good or bad, great or little: that isn’t what human creation is about. It is that we have to try. – Madeleine L’Engle, (Circle of Quiet)