Amazing post Andy and one of us has their journey and it's not good to compare yourself to others and track your progress with theirs.

Their journey may be different, they may have talent that is different than yours, the way their reputation will rise will be different.

Not exactly an underdog story but more of a hubris because when I started I compared myself to other people and thought I wrote with some degree of talent. I am so used to some people saying I move them with my words. I am not the most technical because I write emotionally.
In a way that is what I think it my words connect to the emotion of a person. Yet in my hubris I couldn't understand why people here were not responding and they were responding more to simpler stories of selfies, what they ate for lunch to their musing of their lackluster lives. That was my mistake I underestimated the underdog.

I have been humbled then. I have changed the way I see how people write here. Then I saw those that towered over me in skill and technique and yet there where humble.

My hubris is my downfall. Now I want to begin my writing story respecting all in the way that those kids from section A gave their respect to you when you gave them a run for their money.

P.s how do you handle those that leave messages to look at me without leaving any semblance of reading your post... Sigh.