"Why are you hard on yourself?" · 5:50am Oct 22nd, 2013
I wanted to post this before I go.
So this is something I wanted to answer after seeing some comments on Kiss of the Dark. Its not something I'm asked a lot, but often enough that it didn't completely go away either.
I tend to get this question when I write some piece that people dub a classic, yet I'm not big on. Now the answer will vary from person to person...but its not because I'm a perfectionist that I do that. It's something different.
Its because...well...to be honest, its more like something I developed as a bad habit.
Imagine that you made something for a project for school. You worked hard on it, and you did everything you could to make it good. You didn't leave anything back and you know it, so you feel good about it. You think its awesome.
But then the teacher sees it. He's the one whose opinion actually matters....and when he sees it, he tears it apart and gives it a lessee grade. You feel like you were dead wrong about what you made, and so because of that, you don't think you're as good as you thought you were, because the one guy that mattered didn't like it. So you stop trusting your self image and take on a lesser one.
Imagine this scenario repeated time and time again, from at home with parents to teachers to a letter from Equestria Daily. Evem a few comments here. This is what happened to me.
The backlash of Kiss of the Dark wasn't the first time I had been through self doubt because of bad comments like that before. And I'm not the kind of person who tries to brush it off. I'm too sensitive for it, and instead I think its my fault that I went through this, partly because people flat out told me it WAS my fault a few times in the past. And due to that, I don't trust my self judgment so much, because its been dead wrong before.
So that is why I find myself really, really needing the support of others to see that what I made was good. And there was a time, like with Within the Seas, where one bad comment almost sent me careening to a pit of self pity and depression. I'm serious, because I had no idea if it was good.
And that is why I have been hard on myself. Because there's been so many times where I made something I thought was good, only to be told by that one guy that it was awful. And sometimes that person had power over me.
Maybe thats why I gave into peer pressure with KOTD back then. And maybe that's why I got so scared when people were downright attacking guys for liking EqG, because I thought it was good and didn't want to be wrong about it.
It has gotten better in recent times, thanks in part of all the help I've gotten. Thank you, you know who you are.
I feel your pain, same thing happens to me sometimes
I know that feeling. Happens to me a few times as well.
The only opinion that matters is your own