Last week I wrote my blog post “Why I’m Upset About the New Little Mermaid” and went on to talk about representation in the media and how I felt it should be handled since it is such an important issue. I thought that I did a pretty good job talking about both sides of the argument while using a logical thought process to get my point across and I was pretty proud of that article. However, a couple days ago I got a comment on Facebook that was something along the lines of “Why should I care what you or any other rando is upset about?”

I deleted the comment and moved on with my day but for whatever reason that comment stuck with me. Why should they care? I’m not really anything special, I even named my blog “My Unsolicited Opinion” so it’s not like I was disillusioned about the fact that I was providing answers to questions that nobody was asking. But thinking about it, that’s really all internet content is; YouTube, blogs, Instagram, Tik Tok, it’s all just people deciding that what they have to say is worth putting out there, standing on their metaphorical pedestal, and saying “look at me”!

When answering the question “how did you get started”, most content creators will say that they just started posting and doing what they loved and everything else followed. The only difference between people who want to be writers and actual writers is that actual writers call themselves writers and put content out there. Same with Instagram influencers and Youtubers; the only difference between people aspiring to do those things and those with the title is the creation of content and what they call themselves.

I think that a lot of people spend way too much time thinking about the things they want to be doing instead of just doing them, myself included. I’ve wanted to start a blog for such a long time but I didn’t actually start one until a month ago because I didn’t think that I deserved to call myself a writer until I produced something great. But therein lies the catch 22; you can’t produce something great until you start and begin putting yourself out there.

I was talking to someone about something called “Impostor Syndrome”; its defined officially as “a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a fraud.” That is always something that I’ve experienced for myself but I always assumed that I’d grow out of it. Unfortunately the person I was talking to was a good 10 years older than me and was telling me that she still felt that way all the time. Honestly, I think that conversation was why I decided to start my blog when I did; I just figured that I was never going to find the right time to get started so I just needed to start.

I suppose that’s just how life is, you can’t spend your life waiting until you feel like you’re “ready” or “worthy” of calling yourself what you want and doing the things you want to do. I feel like I remember having this conversation with every artist I’ve talked to in general. I’ve had so many artists tell me that they don’t feel like they can call themselves an artist until they “start making money from their art”, “create something worth calling themselves an artist for”, or “get recognition for being an artist” and I think that is so full of crap. If you make art, you are an artist, if you write you are a writer, if you make YouTube videos you are a Youtuber.

It is entirely possible that I wrote this blog post to soothe my anxiety about choosing to try and pursue writing as a career but I think that I also wrote it to let people know that it’s okay to feel that way. That you’re not alone. The feeling of thinking that you aren’t actually what you are trying to be will never go away until you decide that you aren’t going to listen to that voice in your head anymore. It’s never going to go away until you decide that you aren’t going to care what other people think and just do what you’re passionate about. Only when you give yourself permission to call yourself what you are will you be able to become what you want.