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Thoughts That Come Unbidden Department

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By the numbers

  • Height: 5′ 9″/1.75 meters
  • Weight: 174 lbs/78.9 kilos
  • Trips around the sun: 18,728 days, 6 hours, 33 minutes and 0 seconds
  • Times I’ve been in physical therapy: 2
  • Degrees: 2
  • Professional certificates: 1
  • Full-time jobs held: 12 or 13 depending on how you count
  • Books written: 6
  • Books read: too many to count
  • Movies seen: ibid
  • Times I’ve doubted myself: ibid
  • Times I’ve gotten back up: ibid

Yes, today is one of those days. Those creepy, crawly nasty days when self-doubt kicks in and my incredibly talented inner critic sharpens its claws.

I’m trying a new technique this time. I call it the P.O. Technique.

When the inner critic pipes up about how I have set myself up perfectly to be distracted from the work I need to do on the last book, how I’m going to fail anyway because I don’t fit the profile publishers will look for any more, and how, ultimately, I’ve wasted my life I’m going to tell it to piss off.

In case your BritEng is a little rusty, piss off is a fairly rude way to tell someone to go away. And that’s what I want my inner critic to do: go away.

If I’m going to enjoy the rest of my life, I need to be a better friend to me, and I sure as hell wouldn’t say even half the shit to a friend I let my inner critic say to myself.

It’s not perfect, and it’s something I’m going to need to practice. But practice I will because I need to be a better friend to me.

 

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