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I recently read Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar, a collection of essays from author Cheryl Strayed's anonymous advice column, Dear Sugar, which originally ran on The Rumpus. Through radical empathy and deeply personal stories, Strayed offers thoughtful guidance for navigating life's messiest moments.

One letter, in particular, made my little artist radar light up.

The writer who submitted the question was, well...a writer. But I think the heart of the question applies to anyone pursuing a creative life—painters, photographers, musicians, writers, and just about anyone who has ever poured their heart into making something.

Here's the gist:

Dear Sugar...

How do I deal with this, Sugar? Is jealousy simply part of a writer's life? Are my feelings what everyone is feeling, even when they pretend otherwise? Is it possible to purge these negative feelings and feel other, positive things when I hear someone else's fabulous news?

Talk to me about jealousy, please. I don't want it to rule my life—or at least if it's going to rule my life, I want to be reassured that it's ruling everyone else's life (secretly), too.

Signed,
Awful Jealous Person

Cheryl's response is honest, compassionate, and exactly the kind of perspective I think every artist should read.

She begins:

"Dear Awful Jealous Person,

We are all savages inside. We all want to be the chosen, the beloved, the esteemed. There isn't a person reading this who hasn't at one point or another had that why not me? voice pop into the interior mix when something good has happened to someone else. But that doesn't mean you should allow it to rule your life, sweet pea. It means you have work to do.

Before we get into it, I want to talk about what we're talking about. We are not talking about books. We're talking about book deals. You know they are not the same thing, right? One is the art you create by writing like a motherfucker for a long time. The other is the thing the marketplace decides to do with your creation..."

That distinction really stopped me.

Her words also brought me back almost twenty years.

When my husband and I were trying to start our family, it felt like everyone around me was announcing a pregnancy. I was genuinely happy for my friends...but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't also jealous. Every new announcement felt like another reminder that it wasn't happening for us.

My therapist gave me advice that has stayed with me ever since.

She said, "Just because someone else gets pregnant doesn't take away your child."

Those words changed how I looked at jealousy.

Someone else's joy wasn't stealing mine. Their success wasn't reducing my chances. There was room for all of us.

I think about that advice often as an artist.

When another painter wins the award, lands the gallery, sells the painting, or gets the magazine feature, it doesn't mean there's less opportunity for me. Their success doesn't diminish my work any more than my friends' pregnancies diminished the possibility of my own family.

There is room in this world for all kinds of art.

The challenge isn't competing for a single spot. The challenge is finding your place—creating work that is authentically yours and connecting it with the people who need to see it.

As artists, it's easy to blur the line between creating the work and how the world responds to it. We celebrate the gallery acceptance, the award, the sale, the feature in a magazine, or the social media post that suddenly takes off. Those things are wonderful—but they aren't the art itself.

The art is what happens in the studio.

The rest? That's the marketplace.

If you've ever caught yourself asking, Why not me? when someone else shares exciting news, you're not alone. Cheryl reminds us that those feelings don't make us bad people—they make us human. The important part is what we do with them.

If you'd like to read the full question and Cheryl's complete response (I highly recommend it), you can find it here:

https://therumpus.net/2011/03/31/dear-sugar-the-rumpus-advice-column-69-we-are-all-savages-inside/

I'd love to hear your thoughts. Have you ever found yourself comparing your creative journey to someone else's? What helps you get back to your own path?