I really like helping others. It gives me immense joy and satisfaction.
Every day, for four months, I got up and I helped other people in the American Writers and Artists Institute (AWAI) Facebook groups become better copywriters. And I loved it. (And I was really good at it! I have the emails from the president of the company to prove it.) š
Working for AWAI was better than anything I could imagine. I would do it again in a heartbeat, if I was in the right headspace. I loved having a job where I knew, every day, I was making an impact.
Helping other people is that important to me. Iād say itās one of my top priorities.
But as much as I love to help, thereās something else I love even moreā¦ and I didnāt know how much of a problem this would become for me (but Iām glad Iām figuring it out):
I love attention. (And I will do anything to get it.)
I love being the star. Having all the lights on me. Being the center of every conversation. Being the one everybody looks up to. Stealing the spotlight. Outshining every single one of my peers.
I love being the one whoās moving faster, going farther, rising higherā¦
I was born to be the guy everybody wants to love, and everybody wants to follow.
And thereās nothing wrong with that, as long as a person knows how to keep it in check.
But I donāt keep it in check. In fact, I take it to extremes (whether I intend to, or not). I canāt help myself, really.
I need to be loved.
And sometimes that need can make me do crazy things ā like take a dream job where all I have to do every day is just love and encourage other people, and twist it into a frantic race each day to win more peopleās love and more peopleās admirationā¦
And take something that started out being āall about themā and turn it around until, without me even realizing, suddenly itās āall about me.ā
Instead of helping people in the community who needed my help, I started focusing on proving to others how much of a help I can be, so that they would all heap their praises on me and tell me what a wonderful addition Iāve become to the community!
Which, admittedly, is nice to hearā¦ but itās not why I sought that job in the first place.
I went after the job because I wanted to serve. At least, thatās what Iām telling myself. I simply wanted to help other people finish their courses, find their first client, and generally have a positive experience with AWAI, and feel like they had indeed made the right decision to become a copywriter.
But thereās more to the story than just that. (There usually is.)
I also went after the job for personal reasons, reasons I was too insecure to admit, because I thought if Rebecca Matter knew I had selfish reasons too, it would ruin my chances of ever getting the gig.
I went after the job because I wanted to be the center of attention. I wanted to be āthe guyā who could solve everybodyās problems. I wanted to be āthe coolest person in the community.ā
I wanted to love on everybody in the AWAI community, because I thought if I could get enough of them to love me in returnā¦ maybe I could finally love myself.
To be clear, I do love the AWAI community. I mean, like, I genuinely love them. And I did help a lot of people! (I still do, just in different ways now.) And I was always sincere in my interactions with othersā¦ and I really do want to see everybody win!
But man, that dark underbelly of needing to always make everything about meā¦
I just canāt even.
It wasnāt enough that I needed every member of the community to love me. I needed them to know I was the reason they were succeeding in the first place.
I needed to be their everything.
And the more I made the job about me, and how great I am, the harder I had to work to prove to myself that I really am that great, and that itās not just something I tell myself when I need validation.
At first, everything was great. I was able to get the validation I wanted, while also helping the community at large. That felt so good.
For the first time in years, there was something in my life that I was good at, that made a difference, that other people really valued. And that excited me, and made me want to start learning and growing again, and pursue something more than just living the rest of my days as a disabled veteran who didnāt think he was really good for that much of anything, anymoreā¦
But in a very short amount of time, I got addicted to the attention I was getting, and the success, and the rapid growth, and the admirationā¦ and the positive feedback and encouragement from mentors, and teachers, and from Rebecca Matter, the president of the company!
Very quickly, my focus shifted from wanting to learn myself, and help others succeedā¦ to wanting to impress Rebecca and everybody else with how smart I am, how fast I can move, how Iām not afraid to do anything, how Iām always there encouraging other membersā¦
Their attention, approval, and admiration, became my motivation. Because if someone like Rebecca Matter thinks Iām doing amazing things ā maybe I can start to believe that, myself.
I canāt work like that, though. It makes me frantic. It makes me want to live up to this impossible standard Iāve created for myself, where Iām always on top, never afraid, always put everyone else first, āonly want to serveā (which, I really do want to serve, but I was trying to do it at the expense of getting my own needs met, and taking care of my own mental health ā and thatās not sustainable).
I started to feel like I was always just one or two steps away from burnout, and like the harder I worked, the farther I would drift away from what really matters.
I donāt want to live like that.
I thought I did, for a while. I thought it would make me really, really happy. But as I started to win more approval, and command more attention, Iāve come to realizeā¦ chasing attention and approval simply for its own sakeā¦ in the long run, itās an empty victory.
I did help a lot of other people! I still do. I canāt help but help others. But I did it at the expense of my own health and my own success. And thatās not the way I wanna live my life.
And to be honest, Iām still processing all this, so Iām not really sure what my takeaway is. Except that Iām glad I had this realization ā and took action! ā before it got any further out of hand. And that, for as long as I did have my job, I did a good job. Thatās important for me to recognize, because Iāve been unemployed for so many years, I was starting to believe I couldnāt do a good job, anymore.
It hurts, right now, to walk away from what literally was my dream job. Iām sad Iām not doing it anymore.
But Iām thankful Iām in a position where I can have this kind of breakthrough, and take immediate action to change my circumstances. And Iām looking forward to working through it all in therapy, and maybe, just maybe, getting to the bottom of the whole āneed for attentionā thingā¦
And maybe figuring out, finally, how to get that need met in a way thatās healthy, and that allows me to find the validation I need, and still be able to help other people, solely because I want to see them win.
Because once weāre aware of a problem, humans are more than capable of finding the solution. And because every one of us deserves the chance to get our needs met, and to do it in a way thatās good for our own mental health.