Success and the desperate Fear of Failure

Hey guys, this post will deviate from my usual content, so if you’re here for a scientific short story, you should return tomorrow when everything is back to normal. This kind of post won’t happen regularly, promised.

Those of you who already follow me have probably witnessed my success in the almost two weeks since I joined. I’m quite impressed that you like my stories so much and very happy about it. I’ve been writing stories since I could write at all and it had been my dream to earn money with it.

But dreams like this are usually not suitable to provide enough money to make a living, especially when your area of choice is fiction writing. Most authors can’t live off the money they make with their books. So when I left school, I chose the only other field that caught my interest: Biology.

Biologists don’t have good job chances but there is still more hope than for writers. My parents, especially my father, didn’t exactly celebrate, but they accepted it. At least it was science, at least their smart daughter did something with her life that might make her successful.

I’ll probably finish my degree as Bachelor of Science next year around this time. Then, my goal is to move to Ireland and get a Master’s degree. There is a program called “Immunobiology and Global Health” I’m very interested in, which might be understandable if you’ve read my posts.

But studying outside of Germany is expensive and I need to make money. The thing is, nobody needs biologists without a PhD. And I’m a horrible waitress.

I was very happy when I found steemit and thrilled when my posts took off and began to make money. And then continued to make money.

The first few days were a rush, ideas just poured out of my mind onto the screen. Researching, typing, publishing. It was all so easy. And now? I have a list of possible topics, but the excitement has stopped and was replaced by fear.

Fear of failure. Fear to disappoint. Fear that you guys will stop being entertained by my content. Fear that people will make it their goal to rip my content apart (which, in a way, already happened). Fear that my parents will be proven right and there is no future in writing for me. Fear that I actually suck.

The last thing is a known phenomenon, called the impostor syndrome. But knowing this doesn’t help against the effects.

The anxiety of failure actually eats me alive. I’m barely able to do anything I’m supposed to normally do, because every second of the day, I can only think about the next story, the next post.

I have steemit opened on my computer and my phone at the same time, fearing I’ll miss something. Constantly refreshing. It is too easy to obsess over something like this.

Like your childhood dream coming true.

I don’t want your pity or something like this, I don’t even expect any reactions. I needed to get it off my chest.

And maybe, just maybe, there are some of you who feel the same. If you’re reading this and having similar feelings, just know you’re not alone with this. Steemit is a social media site, built around the attention people give and receive. And in our society, where a person’s worth is measured by the attention they get, this can be damaging to one’s mind. And because money is included in the equation, it gets even worse.

Enough of my rambling, see you again tomorrow with the usual content, I hope you all have a good night or day, depending on where you are on this world.

The picture is, as always, taken from pixabay.com