The writer that taught me to never give up

And it’s the last person you would think….

Photo by Mathieu Stern on Unsplash

“I am so tired of writing for no one”

The delicate balance between staying true to my style, and writing for everyone else other than myself, hangs ominously over my head while I grapple once again with the idea of stealing my time back, from this passion of mine.

I reach this pinnacle time and time again when competing for attention in the online world.

First, it was Facebook and my friends list. Then I as I matured, it was an online business and social media. Now that I have graduated away from entrepreneurship, I write for myself.

I find myself continually lingering over followers and wonder what is wrong with me.

Then I came across it…

An article, written by a fellow Medium writer.

This article was inarticulate. The grammar was poor, and there was no structure or flow to the content he was writing about. I floated through his profile, and one thing was consistent — his writing was nothing I would ever share.

The irony of my discovery did not escape me; he caught my attention.

The feeling inside was as if I was looking at an accident — I just couldn’t look away. I was offered insight into a life of negativity and drama, a simpler mind processing the world around him.

This fleeting glimpse offered me the genius of letting go of my preconceptions of what it meant to be considered a writer.

He had triple the amount of followers that I did.

Really?

My first thought was that I should just give up and walk away. How can this person have so many followers on a writing platform, when there were numerous spelling errors and the most basic of grammatical errors? I know I am no angel and often also make mistakes, but this was writing at a level that I am very sure was a clear indicator that he did not graduate high school (no judgement).

I shut my laptop, and as I pondered my own fate, I wondered once again if I was just a terrible writer.