Has a life breathed easier...

...because I have lived? I was studying the poem below by Emerson and this line stood out to me:

"To know that one life has breathed easier because you have lived."

I wonder if anyone has breathed easier because I have lived. I think so. I've offered such positive and good encouragement to people who have gone through some pretty rough times. I'd like to think that encouragement helped them "breathe a little easier" at the time.

I often find it interesting that it seems when I need encouragement, no one seems to be there at the time. But then, I must accept responsibility here - I don't often TELL anyone that I need encouragement. So how are they to really know? They can't.

I don't tell others most of the time because of the responses I've gotten in the past when I have tried to express my feelings. For some reason in my "real life" I seem to be surrounded by people who like to brush me off, act like I don't exist, or basically who tell me I don't know what I'm talking about. Like my mother for instance...she is a key person who does that to me and it really hurts. (she's also the one who told me my tea had about 50-60 calories per glass...yet *I* don't know what I'm talking about...:))

It's my own fault for putting up with it and listening to it. And I really have done good about eliminating people who treat me like crap from my life. But when it comes to family, it's much more difficult to do that.

I guess that's why I've become reclusive over the past 10 years. I have seen the real world as an ugly place for me to be in...so I became reclusive and have created a beautiful, quiet atmosphere to live in for myself, and I spend my days creating beautiful things from blocks of clay. I wonder if that's the motivation behind other artist's work?

The catch 22 is that in order for me to reach my goal of selling my work and making a decent living from it, I have to promote myself, therefore becoming less reclusive. Perhaps that's the block which has been holding me back.

And then when I do promote myself (my work which = my self), I feel like I come across as "too self confident"...then I get to feeling guilty about that, because I'm really NOT that self-confident. I really depend on others opinions of my work (either their comments or the purchasing of my work) to "boost" that self-confidence level for me. I wish I could get to the stage where I just put the work out there at places it will be seen and I don't have to promote it and the work would sell itself. Maybe I should just try that....just put the work on the site or on the auctions I might do and tell what it is, without the "promo" aspect involved. I wonder what would happen?

Anyway, some how I've rambled on and now it's time to get some serious exercise and mow the yard. Company is arriving in 2 days and I still have a lot to do to get my place ready!