Self Image
A headline - “Of Winners and Losers” - jumped out at me because of the title of my 9th novel, “Losing & Winning”. While the novel was about the consequences of the theft of a winning Lotto ticket, the article under the headline was about the struggle to maintain a healthy self-image.
The author of the article under the headline (Ronald Rolheiser, NZ Catholic, March 12-25, 2017) asserts that:
“When we divide people into winners and losers then our talents and gifts become sources of envy and weapons of competition and superiority... Rather [we should believe] that other people’s gifts are not a threat, but something that enriches all our lives, our own included.”
“Community,” Rolheiser writes, “can only happen when we” take that approach. Otherwise, “we vacillate between feeling depressed and belittled when others outscore us, or inflated and pompous when we appear superior to them.” It becomes an obsession,” Rolheiser says, when we give in to a need “to stand out, be special, to sit above, to make a mark for ourselves.”
In the last decade, I’ve certainly skated on thin ice in promoting myself as a novelist. Self-promotion was foreign to me before then, a character weakness that held back my career according to a boss I worked for over several years in public administration. So, being out of character, self-promotion has not come easily.
I certainly don’t do it to show off but as a necessity to gain readership. At the same time, there is a sense of pride in being a published author – it’s not an easy road. I don’t however look down on anyone who doesn’t have that talent, or feel more than admiration for writers who are more successful than I am.
To do othwise would leave me in an unhappy place.
The author of the article under the headline (Ronald Rolheiser, NZ Catholic, March 12-25, 2017) asserts that:
“When we divide people into winners and losers then our talents and gifts become sources of envy and weapons of competition and superiority... Rather [we should believe] that other people’s gifts are not a threat, but something that enriches all our lives, our own included.”
“Community,” Rolheiser writes, “can only happen when we” take that approach. Otherwise, “we vacillate between feeling depressed and belittled when others outscore us, or inflated and pompous when we appear superior to them.” It becomes an obsession,” Rolheiser says, when we give in to a need “to stand out, be special, to sit above, to make a mark for ourselves.”
In the last decade, I’ve certainly skated on thin ice in promoting myself as a novelist. Self-promotion was foreign to me before then, a character weakness that held back my career according to a boss I worked for over several years in public administration. So, being out of character, self-promotion has not come easily.
I certainly don’t do it to show off but as a necessity to gain readership. At the same time, there is a sense of pride in being a published author – it’s not an easy road. I don’t however look down on anyone who doesn’t have that talent, or feel more than admiration for writers who are more successful than I am.
To do othwise would leave me in an unhappy place.
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