I’m tired of waiting. I’m tired of being patient. When will my time come? I knew going into this that I wasn’t going to get immediate results. I knew that it would take time, effort, and patience. So, I did what I needed to do: I put my head down and got to work. It was meant to be a two-pronged approach that kept me focused in the interim. It allowed me to perfect my storytelling craft in quiet, while still having something to show for it on this platform. But I can’t help but feel like I haven’t really gotten any closer to where I wanna go. It’s gotten increasingly harder for me to maintain my focus.

At first, it was easy for me to ignore all the distractions. I knew that my quality of writing needed to improve drastically if I wanted to make this work. It wasn’t particularly difficult to keep my head down then, since in my mind it was a tangible goal to reach for—even if the line between not good enough and where I need to be was rather blurry. But now that I’ve leveled up to a place that I feel good about, I feel like I’d like something more. I’ve spent enough time toiling in the workshop, I want to show the world what I’ve learned and how much I’ve improved. I feel like I have a lot to offer to the people around me. Unfortunately, I continue to learn time and time again that what I want isn’t necessarily what the universe is willing to provide. In fact, it seems that more often than not the two don’t align at all.

It seems that love, support, and appreciation is hard to come by these days. It just feels like no matter what I do or how hard I try I just can’t get the backing that I’m looking for. I understand that people don’t care about the same things that I care about. Most people aren’t going to prioritize mental health or writing or poetry the way that I do. That’s just the honest truth. I’m not so naive that I’ll believe otherwise. And I’m not so arrogant or entitled to believe that I’m owed anything from anyone. However, I feel like I should at least get what I deserve—I should get as much out of it as I put into it. That’s only fair, right? Unfortunately, I continue to learn the hard way that life isn’t fair either. The scale isn’t balanced. And perhaps karma is just a fallacy. A concept that’s better in theory than it is in practice. Merely an ideal and not reality. 

You have no idea how much it pains me to say that. While I’m not going to go so far as to proclaim that, “karma is a lie,” I have to accept that there’s a possibility that it isn’t a law of the universe like I want to believe. I’m not sure when exactly it happened, but for some time now, a large component of my ethos has been the concept of meritocracy. You get what you give. You’re rewarded according to your skill and what you’re able to provide. If you work hard and do good, blessings will come to you. If you insert positive energy into the world, you’ll receive positive energy in turn. Good ideals to have, but I’ve started to wonder as well, whether or not this is rooted in truth.

For the last four years or so, I was so confident that I had the right of it. All I had to do was put in the time, effort and energy, and things would come together for me. While I still want to believe that, and will continue to operate like it’s true, I’m just not so sure anymore. My hard work hasn’t paid off yet. Again, I understand that it takes time, but I guess I just thought things would play out differently. I thought what I had to offer the world would be well-received. That’s not how things have gone, to say the least. While I haven’t received outright hate or negativity (at least, not in a long time), I’ve received quite a bit of apathy and indifference, which frankly, I’m getting rather tired of. Of course, I was expecting such a reception—it’s the life of a starving artist after all (name me a group of people more misunderstood than creatives, I’ll wait)—but I had thought it’d be to a lesser degree. 

I almost feel like I prefer the former rather than the latter. Hate and negativity is easier to tune out, especially if you’re confident and know your worth. You know what you’re capable of. If you’ve been busting your ass at something you’re passionate about, you will improve—that’s just a fact of life. At some point, you will reach a baseline competency in the quality of your product and your skillset. Your haters and doubters won’t have a leg to stand on. Anything they say will come off as petty jealousy or spite. Easy to ignore because you know that what they have to say is neither meaningful nor true. There’s nothing that needs to be read into further, because how they feel about you is out in the open.

Not so when it comes to indifference. When it comes to indifference nothing is overt or straightforward. It’s a cloak and dagger operation rife with obfuscation, projection, and misunderstanding/misinterpretation. How exactly are you supposed to read into the lack of action? Do they not care? If so, why not? Does what you have to say not matter to them? Do you not matter to them? Or do they simply not understand what it is you’re trying to do? How exactly are you supposed to know without confronting them? Finding out the truth will likely lead to uncomfortable situations, however. Easier then to decide to just leave things as they are—keep the truth hidden somewhere in the dark. But that’s never sat well with me. It feels too much like a game of chicken. One party is too afraid to ask the other how they truly feel, and the other party isn’t willing to commit, for whatever reason. Which leaves us at an impasse which will never be resolved unless someone budges.

I dunno about you, but I’m too old to be playing such games. If you’re on my side then prove it. Actions speak louder than words. Don’t just tell me you want to see me succeed, show it to me. I don’t think I’m asking for much here. If you care about me (or cared about me once) then you should care about the work that I do. It’s as simple as that. No fakery or hidden meanings. Do I matter to you? Yes or no? That’s a question for you to ponder, and one that I’m going to condition myself to ignore. Easier said than done, of course—like most things. But something I have to keep reminding myself of, because at the end of the day, what you think about my work doesn’t actually matter. I’m not saying that your opinion doesn’t matter, to be clear. I’m saying that your opinion about what I’m doing is irrelevant to my goal(s). 

Throughout life there will be people who support you and people that will doubt you. You will have lovers and you will have haters. People will praise you and people will shit on you. These are facts of life. You can’t please everybody because everybody is different. Some worldviews align with each other, and some clash. The sooner you accept this, the sooner you’ll realize that all feedback is noise, good or bad. Criticism, constructive or otherwise, either helps you improve or it gets in your way. You take what’s beneficial, and you throw out the rest. 

That being said, I’m not going to beg. I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for support to come from the indifferent—that’s never going to happen. I’m not going to throw a pity party and say, “woe is me…” I already did enough of that in my youth. Instead, I will focus on me and what I can do. How can I be a better writer? How can I be a better mental health advocate? How can I be a better storyteller, poet, editor or what have you? How can I live the life that I think I deserve? I can only control what I can control. And it starts with my effort and my consistency. I can’t let up for a second. I can’t afford to lose my focus. I can’t let anything get in the way of my goal. Some day I’ll get to where I wanna go, but only if I keep following through. There’s no such thing as failure, only lessons. The only way I fail is if I give up. And I’ll tell you this much: that ain’t happening, as long as the passion is there. You might not believe in me, but I believe in me. And that’s all that matters.