Sometimes I am so hard on myself. One class doesn’t work as planned, and I berate myself for being a poor teacher. Another rejection comes from a literary magazine, and I refuse to take joy in the acceptances and publications I’ve already received.

You know what I’m talking about. The exasperating voice in our heads, the one that says: LOSER. You can almost feel the finger pointing right between your eyes.

I’m lucky, though. I tend to be a glass half-full kind of person. Once I can feel the weight piling up on my shoulders, I start tossing those layers of negativity aside. Soon, I dive back into the project at hand.

I begin again, remembering this from Annie Dillard:

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing.