Artists Guilt

Is there such a thing? I could look it up I suppose. This morning I woke up early with the normal pangs of guilt that I feel pretty much daily and I came to the conclusion that it's the reason I'm plagued by wanting to help everyone somehow. I had a few goals when I was a teenager...

Don't wish away 5 out of 7 days
Make a living selling something I make
Marry and spend the rest of my life with Lisa (seriously)

I didn't know anything about goal setting or how to go about all of this and I was constantly doing this reverse comparison thing. Reverse to the norm anyway. Most people compare themselves to others that have it better. I've always compared myself to folks that have it worse and now that I write this out for the first time in decades of dwelling on it, I'm thinking it's because I didn't have it all that great. Funny...even as I wrote that last sentence there was a voice in my head saying, "give me a break, there's billions of people that have/had it farrr worse than you. Suck it up and be grateful." I guess that in many ways it's a good way to view life but it can't be good if I feel guilty every time I sell something that I create. Right?

Cut to present day. I quite literally have all of those things and now I'm plagued with guilt about it so constantly trying to figure out how to help people on some grand scale. So the question becomes, do I really want to help people or do I just feel guilty for having a good life now?

Here's what I know. I really do want to help people and I really do feel guilty for what I've achieved. I want people that don't have this...to have this. Not my list, but their list. I'd love to write a book but I don't even know how I got here. I just kept floating around doing the thing I wanted to do which led to two and a half decades of financial struggle and a ton of emotional baggage to sort through. Not an ideal path. So what am I feeling so guilty about!?

Probably shouldn't post this but...F it.

A

p.s. I also created the image above.