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Do you ever feel like your slot in this life/world has already been taken by someone else?
Have you ever discovered someone with the life or job you desire and thought…they’ve got this. So, where does that put me? What’s left for me to do when someone else is doing that as well as anyone could want?
For example…how many people can really take up the space occupied by famous authors? How many of those authors being presently thrust into the spotlight…with talk shows throwing copies at audience members…do you expect to be remembered and heralded decades from now? Who do you see being the next Dickens or Wells? So, you wrote a children’s book or a novel liked by a few people you happen to know who took the time to flip through it. If you cannot even get on one of those talk shows, what are your odds of acquiring a respectable number of readers? How do you compete with other authors who put out a new book almost every year or every few years? Are you content just being published, even if your book ends up in the ghost town of clearance racks at Barnes and Noble?
You can’t do better than that other person. Or, even if you could, you doubt anyone would value you more than that other person, based upon popular opinion. And, most likely, you’re not popular. You never had the chance to become famous for anything. Everyone has beat you to it.
When you pursue a new job, you’re supposed to “sell yourself” and stand out from the others seeking the same job. Is that realistic? Or, do you just exaggerate and/or lie to enhance your spotlight?
Look at those speed-dating shows in which one man or woman is surrounded by twenty-or-more members of the opposite sex (or the same sex, whatever), and the former picks off the latter, one by one, until two fools are left with the slim hope of achieving more than those who went before them. How does one person stand out from the others without stepping on their toes and shoving them out of the way just to steal a moment of the star’s time? Is that what’s left? Pure, savage force at the risk of starting a brawl? Is this Planet of the Apes? You…jerks…you’ve ruined it…ruined my chances of finding happiness.
Now, imagine or consider actual one-on-one dating and what happens when your date decides to “see other people,” not just you. What if your date has a type, and you’re just one of that type. Now, some other person of the same type scores slightly higher than you for whatever reason. You’re out. What then? How does that leave you feeling? Do you just suck it up and try the same approach/routine with someone else?
So, where does that put you? What’s left for you in this life? A routine job and mediocre-at-best social life? Just joining the herd of laboring cows in this world?
Do you let your “friends” put you on the blind-date cycle and hope for the best? Do you start “swiping” and lowering expectations to the point you feel like one step from a prostitute? Do you steel yourself for a life of solitude and considering pets and the kids of other people as your own? Do you submit to becoming the “crazy cat” person?
I think I just got lost in a chain of questions. Swirling… Bitter food for thought. Hmm.
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