Part of being a self proclaimed "Type A Underachiever" is the underachiever part. Despite any talents and motivations I may have, my life thus far has not held much success for me. I know I want to write at least one book in my lifetime, but I have yet to even zero in on a topic. Although I have been mostly successful as a student, I have no career. The last job I held was at a gas station about 5 years ago. This blog now makes my 3rd unsuccessful blogging venture. Unless I post my entries to facebook I get about 4 views per post, and I have yet to inspire a single comment out of any viewers.
I used to get upset about my lack of internet success with my blogs and such things. I think of one guy on the internet who appears to be the "go to guy" when it comes to psychology. I am not being critical of him, and in fact I have found many of his ideas worthy of further examination. But in some comic book style alternate universe, this guy is like, my arch nemesis. He is more than 10 years younger than me. He has a successful blog, he writes books, he has a strong online following. He has all the success that seems to be perpetually out of my grasp despite my best efforts. For a long time I thought I was just doing things wrong.
But today when I was in the shower, where I do some of my best thinking, I started to realize that I was looking at things completely wrong. I am not successful on the internet, because it is just not my thing. I am not about reaching faceless masses on some grand scale, and my success or lack thereof in my online endeavors says absolutely nothing about my ability to help people. I was not meant for it. I was meant to reach people in real life. I was meant to get out there, and make real connections with real people.
Part of what comes along with big internet success is that it makes you more of an "armchair psychologist" than anything else. It removes you from the origin of the field- working closely with people on a one on one basis. One thing that I can say I did not like about that internet counterpart that I previously mentioned, is how he reacted to me when made a comment on one of his posts. He automatically took the stance of a teacher. I could not help but feel (I will admit, perhaps unreasonably so) a little insulted. I was sharing some of my life experiences in hopes of sparking a conversation about the topic, and this young guy who could not have studied psychology any longer than I have, reacted to me as if I was just another lost soul looking for advice. I speculate this is also because of the nature of internet success. When you sit atop a mountain of faceless names who follow you, support you, and give you endless positive feedback it must be really easy to think of yourself as the perpetual teacher and every person you meet in that forum to be a willing student.
You see, to me it does not matter if I reach 4 people with this blog or 4,000. I am not out to be a great teacher. I am just a person like everyone else. And just as everyone has certain "gifts" in life, one of mine is the ability to communicate. Even if I never achieve some great internet success (which at this point it is pretty clear that I won't, and I am totally fine with that) if I can just reach that one person who needs words for their own feelings but cannot find them. If I can reach that one person who no longer feels alone because of what they read here. If I can reach one person, even if I never know who they are, who is helped in any way by my efforts, that is what I am here for. That is what is in my heart. That is my purpose in this life.
So no matter how many, or how few readers I have here, I will continue to share my thoughts and ideas. Because for me, success is not measured in the numbers of people you reach, but in the quality of the connections you create with people you touch.
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