Skip to main content

Gettin' Jiggy At The Pity After-Party


Over the past six months at AOL, one topic of personal reflection is upon my online skills. I'll be the first to tell you that I'm a "rick-of-all-trades...master-of-none" in the skills department.

I don't consider myself a Graphic Artist, although I know my way around Photoshop and can create a variety of online graphics. I don't consider myself a Web Designer, although I can lay out a site the way I'd like it to appear and function. I don't consider myself a Web Programmer, although I know my way around several web languages.


Each of these skills are job titles with which some people are vastly talented. More often, there are webmonkeys, such as myself, who know a little about a lot of things...but not a lot about any one of those things.

Which brings me to today's question: when's the last time you sent yourself an invitation to your pity party? I can honestly say the e-vite hasn't popped in my inbox lately. And its not the reason for writing this post. But you likely recall a recent time of being bummed out, down, feeling low, or thinking you're a loser.

Fact is, there's always someone who's more talented (and even less talented) than you at something. Whether it's your job, parenting, spousing (hey, a new word!), public speaking, blogging, games, hunting, gardening...the list goes on. Someone is ALWAYS better AND worse at something than you.

It's difficult to avoid these parties. We secretly enjoy sending out the invites to ourselves and others. Misery loves company. We attempt to find others who will likely bring us to some level of satisfaction. How long we choose to hang at the party and what we do at the after-party is our choice.

If you don't feel you're good enough at something - think of ways to improve and try one. If you fail, try something else. Through your successes and failures you'll enrich your life and likely improve in that which you feel inadequate. Or you'll determine that the subject isn't really important after all.

I've created dozens of websites over the years and most have been redesigned. I've longed to have more time to improve my web skills but I've reach a point where I'm okay with being a webmonkey. Not that I've settled for that...I'm embracing it more these days. I've recognized that my talents and joy is in empowering others to express their creativity and providing resources and guidance for them to accomplish this.

If time allows to grow on specific web skills, great! If not, no worries. I enjoy the challenges of the day. Perhaps you need to attend your own after-party...and realize how blessed and rich your life truly is. There'll always be pity parties but you don't have to RSVP.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

See You Around, Mike

Three weeks ago, I attended the memorial service of a dear Brother in Christ. Sunday, June 10, would've been his 56th birthday. I miss my friend. But what's sad is that I didn't miss Mike until he was gone. At least in the middle of the odd month, but definitely by the last week of it, Mike would always reach out to me with a request. It was usually to load a certain worship music video or some game show music. Sometimes, he needed some specific slides created or sound effects. Mike put a lot of thought into preparing the lessons. For certain lessons, Mike asked the kids to write something that was bothering them or something that was a sin. Then he had them take hammer and nail to that card and attach it to an old rugged cross. Mike often brought in props to physically connect the Bible stories to the kids. For example, when he dressed as an innkeeper and walked in a wheelbarrow full of fresh cow manure. He was adding the smell of a barn to the lesson just to help

May We Never Forget

On this 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, I'm posting below a story I wrote on the 10th anniversary. These are my reflections on that day.  Looking at the first paragraph, it's interesting how times change. No one has asked me questions of where I was or what I was doing. I'm not sure if many of us have forgotten but more likely we're so very distracted. We've navigated almost two years of a pandemic that's taken and changed so many lives. We've navigated political and cultural changes poorly and emotionally to the point of creating more divisions.  We are not the country we were the weeks and months after 9/11. The bipartisan efforts then were refreshing. The amount of American flags flying proudly and in solidarity was inspiring. Today, it seems many despise their own country and its flag. But even this is not new. While she has stumbled over the years and will continue to do so - America will always be the most amazing country in the world. It

Reverse Discrimination of Christmas

With Christmas slowly fading from your memory, did you find yourself this year taking a stand for Christmas? I'm not talking about stealing the stand beneath the Christmas tree. Perhaps you missed it but 2009 was the year of sticking it to retailers who refused to display or say "Merry Christmas!" Boycotting secular businesses because they aren't promoting Christmas: righteous or ridiculous? I'll vote for both.