Sometimes It’s Not About You

There was a time when I “owned” the top spot on Google for The Heart Wants What It Wants.

That link above leads to the post that held the title, well not the original version of it but that’s not the point.

You see some pop singer who has a larger fan base than I did put out a song with a similar name and it knocked my post off its pedestal, least I think it did.

Truth is the original went up in 2007 and there is a good chance it was moved from its place long before I noticed.

A while back I mentioned this in passing to another blogger and they told me I had to do whatever I could to try and regain my spot and how they would never let this happen to them.

When I didn’t jump up and say they were right they suggested I was making a huge mistake and I told them it wasn’t about what they would do, but what I wanted to do.

Sometimes it’s not about you.
Saturday night I took Steiner the Minor to see Spectre.

A few hours earlier I mentioned we were going to another father on the soccer fields and he told me he wouldn’t waste his time seeing it because the reviews were awful.

I told him I didn’t care, I always like James Bond and my primary interest was in spending time with my son.

Kid is in high school now and when he is home he is often locked away in his room. Won’t be much longer before he is driving and we’ll see him even less than we do now.

I am not surprised by any of this, I was the same way when I was his age so I am doing my best to spend time with him when I can.

Other dad asked me if I really wanted to waste money. I told him that sometimes it is not about you and that I don’t rely solely upon the critics to make decisions about what I see or not.

I don’t wear a sweater just because you are cold.

69 Life Lessons From Building A Blog

Stephen King wrote a great book about writing that I keep next to my desk. It is filled with all sorts of useful information, some of which I have shared in posts here.

He is not the only author I refer to for his/her expertise on writing but in some ways he gets the most play because of his book.

It is probably part of why he gets so much play around the blogosphere too, especially this one:

“Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

I appreciate his advice and I often listen to it, but sometimes I don’t because Stephen it is not always about you either.

I didn’t kill my darlings in any of these posts because they needed to live and they added to the tale:

• 69 Life Lessons From Building A Blog
• There Is No Bedtime For Bloggers
• The Tales Of A Blogger Who Never Made It Big

I didn’t do it because sometimes you have to go with your gut and do what feels right, in spite of what you hear and see from others.

Been thinking that maybe this is why I feel like I have lived most of my life looking from the outside in.

It is not to say I haven’t gone along with the crowd or done what the others do because I did. I have and I am sure I will again.

I am not always the rogue, maverick or outlier.

Sometimes I am just Jack Steiner, just a man doing my best to get through it all.

Sometimes I think about it and wonder if it has served me well as a father and most of the time I am good with it.

Most of the time I am good with it, but sometimes I have to tell myself sometimes it is not about you and ask if it serves my children too.

Life Is The Most Complicated Simple Thing Ever

Remember a few moments ago how I said that I don’t always listen to Stephen because sometimes it is not about him. Well, sometimes I ignore one thing and listen to another because it feels like he just gets it.

“I have spent a good many years since―too many, I think―being ashamed about what I write. I think I was forty before I realized that almost every writer of fiction or poetry who has ever published a line has been accused by someone of wasting his or her God-given talent. If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that’s all.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Many years ago when I was just an ordinary writer who didn’t know about blogs because they hadn’t been invented and didn’t use computers to write upon because I typed or hand wrote my stories all I had to use to tell those tales were words.

Now we have all sorts of nifty devices so I can insert pictures, music and videos into these posts.

So now I ask myself if my writing suffers because I rely too heavily upon these tools or because I don’t use them enough.

Reminds me of a time when I kissed someone I had kissed before and discovered that some fires are never extinguished the way you think they might be.

There had been years in between kisses and a lot of life lived between yet that moment made all the gears start clicking and I remembered things I had forgotten.

Possibility met opportunity and a new picture was painted.

Sometimes it’s not about you and sometimes it is all about you.