I belong to many online writer’s groups, but hardly participate in most of them.

I decided to do some culling. To streamline (again) what’s coming into my inbox every day and remove myself from the information streams in which the material doesn’t add to my life.

I went on one of the sites in question, trying to figure out how to cancel my membership, and was drawn into the featured story that month. A (grown) man had written a lengthy essay about his disappointing experiences as a wannabe writer and the frank responses he received from other writers. He had reached out to some established writers with his material, and received critical responses, or no response at all. He was bitter.

Here’s what really struck me:

The time he spent writing that piece, easily the length of a substantial blog post or article, about how he wasn’t getting any support from the writers he knew, could have so easily been spent making or refining his art. Instead, he chose to bitch and moan about how hard it all was. And how people were harsh with him.

I read the article with rising levels of disgust. It had the pull of a gruesome accident on the side of the road. I could not turn away, even as I felt myself experiencing every negative emotion I could muster.

It was so bad that I even read the comments. All of them. Not a single person said, “Hey buddy, did you read somewhere that being a writer was easy? That you should be lauded by Stephen King, Oprah and the Dalai Lama just because you know how to type? How about putting on your big-boy pants, growing a set, and actually doing the work because it’s what you claim to love? How about dropping the poor-me, why-me, entitlement bullshit and creating something?”

Frankly, that’s all I wanted to see. Because this man, who received a flurry of cyber hugs and pats on the back, will never succeed with that attitude (IMHO). Maybe he is actually very talented, and the world will never know it because he’s so angry about people in his life not coddling him like an infant.

He wanted to feel justified in his pursuit of an activity in which failures outnumber successes by a ridiculous proportion. He wanted the people who succeeded before him to say, “It was so easy! Of course you can do it!” The actual truth of the matter – apparently irrelevant.

I get the irony of my writing an article complaining about complaining. I understand sometimes we just need someone to hear our whines and groans before we can move on to bigger things.

What most of us really need, in my personal perspective, is to understand that the process of growing into who we could be is never comfortable. That following our soul’s calling is a rocky, windy, uphill road.

Let’s all get over the life-sucking idea that anybody owes us anything, shall we?

I unsubscribed. In the immortal words of Sweet Brown, “Ain’t nobody got time for that.”

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It’s easy to get stuck in the ‘why me’ mindset. There seems to be abundant support for that kind of behavior. But there’s an alternative.

Realize that the hero or heroine you are waiting for is actually in your shoes, right now.

This fall, I’m launching a program directed at just this issue.

The AAA Plan for Self-Rescue is a 40-day online experience for dissatisfied seekers ready to provide their own soul-side assistance and free themselves from the binds of suffering. When I say suffering, I mean sadness, anger, grief, discontent and resentment.

On the surface, it’s about shifting perspective using Awareness, Alignment and Activation – The AAA Plan – but really it’s about shifting over to the driver’s seat of your life.

You’re in the right place. Let me help. Find out more here.