"extremely good and awarded drawer"
I was going through the sketchbook of daily journal comics I did in 2021 and came across this cheeky yet aspirational self-portrait.
One of my toxic traits is my inability to function if what I’m doing isn’t externally rewarded. Chasing institutional validation has worked out okay for me most of my life: eg) to “be a lawyer,” I went to law school, wrote a bar exam, and got a job. It was all external: doing the actions just made me the thing (I’m sure that there are lawyers out there who would describe it differently but this is how it felt for me).
So, it seemed logical that “being a writer” meant getting published, full stop. But, I’m now realizing that if I’m pinning my self-worth and career trajectory exclusively on the enthusiasm of publishers and critics, I am only setting myself up for a lifetime of this.
Allow me to elaborate!