Need Some Perspective?

Simply look to the past

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

I’m not sure why, but I felt compelled to analyze my writing progress today.

This is not an exercise for the faint of heart. Or maybe I’m just too sensitive when it comes to my creative pursuits… For example, when I see the title of something I wrote, I either relive the good experience or coil in horror as negative memories flood my brain.

Nightmares aside, I opted for this experiment specifically to gauge how much I’ve made since joining Medium. No real reason behind it, just an exercise in curiosity.

Beyond the Failures

To evaluate my efforts to date, I accessed my stats page and sorted the stories by earnings. Had I just glanced at the numbers alone, I would have shut down my account ASAP and moved on. They were that depressing.

However, it’s not the finite details that matter. It’s the big picture.

Sure, only my boosted stories have paid in the double or triple digits. And a lot of my earlier posts have barely passed the dollar mark. Only a handful of stories have made enough money to justify my Medium subscription.

But, as a whole, I’ve produced a sizable library of work. And I can read my original stories compared to what I put out there today and recognize just how…