Human Nature? Or Just Negativity?
Deidre Knight made an interesting comment today in response to Mel’s post:
A few years ago we had one of our authors visit during RWA. She’s a nonfiction author, and had never attended the event because, of course, she’d had no reason. But she wanted to meet up with Pamela while the event was nearby and she spent some time at RWA. THis is a wonderful person, btw–warm, caring, just great to work with. Her comment to Pamela after a day was, “I’ve never been around such a negative group of women in my entire life.”
That’s an incredibly sad portrait of what we become when we join together as women. It should be about sisterhood, empowerment. Instead, it seems that a select few resent any success or happiness that comes for others, convinced that it robs them in some way of success on their own.
Sadly enough, I think Deidre is right. There are people who honestly believe that they’ve been robbed every time someone else gets that coveted promotion, pay raise, publishing contract, etc.
I’m not saying it’s wrong to feel a small pang of envy. Hell, I do too; I’m only human. When Jennifer got the call from Samhain, a tiny part of me was envious — because I wanted it too. But I never thought I was robbed or that she didn’t deserve it or secretly wished that her book would flop. You know why? Because there’s no reason to. I was thrilled for her, and frankly, I want my writing buddies and crit partners to be successful.
I think people who are incapable of being happy for other people’s good fortune are like that because deep inside they are miserable and insecure. They’re incapable of being positive and happy with themselves, so their negative energy and thoughts contaminate all their interactions with others and ultimately drive everyone away, including their Muse.
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You know this is sad, but so true. How often does someone achieve writing success and people jump up and claim “why?”
I think it’s just human nature to want what other’s have.
I do agree that we should encourage and celebrate when those around us have good fortune - create the good karma!
Thinking and wishing good things for all those around me today
I want my crit partners and writing buddies to do well, too. (It makes me look better) LOL!
–just (half) kidding–
But anyway, I think it’s definitely human nature to say “when is it going to me?” “When will it be my time?” But I’ve never been around any crit partners or writing friends that I haven’t felt truly blessed to know. Never any negativity vibes going on at all.
And at the RWA conventions, I’ve been fortunate enough to hang around and/or meet some really supportive people. It’s a shame that woman Pam had such a bad experience.
I agree that envy is OK. It’s human nature to what what someone else has. But jealousy, wanting what someone else has at their expense is wrong.
Sure, I want to be published. But I don’t want to be published instead of my crit partners…I want to be published WITH them.
There’s a lot of room on that shelf, and I don’t mind sharing
The topic of writers and envy is one that comes up a fairly often. I think Karen Scott posted on it a while back. A little envy is human, but I never understood the negativity–especially for Romance. Romance is a huge market, there’s plenty to go around if you’re willing to work hard.
Despite what some critics may say, it’s not like any of us write the same books–our work is not interchangeable. If a friend or acquaintance gets the call, then good for them, it was their time. If I don’t get the call, then maybe I haven’t worked hard enough. It’s not that I don’t sometimes wish I could also be experiencing that wonderful moment of joy upon learning a publisher wants my book, or the anticipation of a book with my name on it coming out in print. But I want to get that feeling from _my_ hard work, and _my_ book–not someone else’s.
It doesn’t make sense to be jealous of or negative about someone else’s success, because it’s their success–they worked for it. It’s great to see hard work rewarded, and inspiring to think that if I work hard to write well, the same thing could happen to me.
I’ve worked with men and I’ve worked with women, and it’s been my experience that some women are just too competitive.
Competitive to the point where they deliberately undermine other women so that they get the credit for work well done, instead. Sure, I suppose men can do this, too, but–I’ve only had about 8 jobs in my life, and of those, in 4 of the jobs, where women slammed other women. The men? Not once.
The women I’ve worked with have also been more territorial (who used my pen? Who moved my coffee cup?) and unaccepting of procedure change. They’ve also been prone to gossip.
You’d think that women would be nuturing, kind and accepting, but in certain situations, the opposite appears to be true. Strange, isn’t it?