2 Min Read

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about what’s been keeping me from writing. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it at first—I just felt stuck. I assumed it was because starting anything new is inherently difficult. But the more I sat with it, the more I realized the real culprit might be comparison.

How does my writing compare to others’?

How will it be received?

Is it even worth sharing?

That line of questioning brought me back to a walk home from school with my daughter after her book fair. On the way, I shared in a fatherly way a quote I had come across not long before—something attributed to Mark Twain: “Comparison is the death of joy.”

My daughter is 10, and like many kids her age, she’s becoming increasingly aware of how she stacks up against others—what she has, how she looks, and what she can and can’t do. The book fair was another prime example.

Even with the best intentions, the Scholastic Book Fair can create an atmosphere thick with comparison. One kid gets enough money to buy one of everything, another walks away with five books, and another only gets one or two. (Thankfully, our school has a donation program to help even things out for students who wouldn’t otherwise be able to participate.) Still, instead of focusing on what she did get, my daughter found herself stuck on what others got.

And honestly—how could I blame her?

Comparison isn’t just a kid thing. It’s a human thing.

We do it all the time. We look at what others have, how they perform, and what they’ve accomplished—and measure ourselves against them. More often than not, the result is discouragement, not motivation.

So maybe that’s why I’ve had such a hard time writing.

Maybe I’ve been too focused on how my words measure up instead of just letting them exist.

I’m working on that. And maybe you are too.

Steve