Get Rid of the Entitlement: Your Unique Opportunity for Growth

As I've said before, crocheting happens to be something I excel at, but it was a hard won path that took years of patient dedication, like any craft. Sometimes, there are points where crafts cross over with philosophies that boost another of your outlets.

Comments I see time and again in crochet groups. "How do I make this? There's no pattern!" It is then followed by more increasingly entitled lamenting "I found a pattern in Russian. Can I have it in English?" "I've only found a diagram and can't read that kind of pattern?" "Ugh, I hate when there's no pattern, but I REALLY want to make it!"

People tend to get passionate only as far as the comments go, but most of them give up when the conditions aren't completely ideal. There's rarely any spirited chirps of 'well, guess it's a good time to learn Russian/read diagrams' or 'maybe I could look at the stitches and attempt to make it from the picture!' but damn it, there should be! Age or patience or sheer laziness and entitlement shouldn't ever be an excuse to cut yourself off from attempting a new learning experience.

And yes, this absolutely applies to writing.

I get it. One thing crochet has over writing is that the mistakes can often become a part of the design, unknown to all but the proficient crafter themselves and even another master would have difficult spotting it without being told. However, writing also has an edge over crochet in that the mistakes are easier to correct, that a story doesn't have to be unraveled to be fixed. However, it does require you to shed entitlement, to welcome humility in the process and take the bad with the good (and realize bad and good are subjective).

See the failings of a perfect scenario as your place to make it better. Take the time to write the non-existent pattern and you can turn around and charge for that coveted design. Take the time to write that non-existent book! Or shrink it down-- novella, short story, poem. A lot of short pieces grow with inspiration into something much bigger than you imagined. Even a proficient crafter can float as run-of-the-mill, always passing up challenges beyond the comfort level for any number of excuses.

We're modern creatures, often spoiled by its conveniences, so many of us resorting to whining, looking for the bleeding hearts to do the hard work for us. It's one of the reasons I started plugging up the holes on my own bleeding heart tendencies. There's only so much you can do, only so much you can let yourself be sidetracked by the monumental amount of pleas begging you to their cause. I can't say I never cave. Sometimes I'll translate patterns or make my own when I see the whining, not because of some genuine urge to please the masses, but because the challenge DOES appeal to me and I DO see the sense in appealing to a profitable demand. Yet sometimes I withhold that urge, wondering how desperate or passionate that 'need' will be, whether it will encourage just one of those entitled commenters to take matters into their own hands.

It's okay to be an enabler sometimes, to be selfless in your work or selfish too. I don't push back and try to shame those commenters because who really cares about the opinion of some internet stranger? It's not going to reduce their number and could even do quite the opposite. I do want to see people reach their full potential, but coddling is NOT the same as nurturing. When someone feels the edges of confidence, you have to push them ahead of that sense of instant gratification, to let them know that it's just going to get scary sometimes. Ultimately, that's where the greatest sense of accomplishment always seems to reside. Not in who you can look to for help every time, but where you can go inside yourself to try and help yourself first.

No shame in looking for some help sometimes, but the temptation to treat it like a crutch is where people fall astray so much. Don't be 'too old' or 'too impatient' or have 'too many other easier options' to reach for goals that might require both some help or some scary alone time.

Think of it like learning a language. You can either trust the interpreter to speak for you or you can speak for yourself. Even the most well-meaning interpreter can fall short of what you mean to convey. There's a lot of benefit to shedding ignorance in your craft, even if it's just a little at a time. Can you spot a misspelled word? Can you proofread your own work? Can you shed more excuses and say exactly what you're trying to say? Sure, you can pay someone to do it and that's a great way to encourage people to develop such skills. But don't always shuck a learning experience to take the easy way out either. You might surprise yourself and spread that proficiency across the board.

I became a better artist over a 5-year dry spell with drawing. This doesn't mean you can piss away the importance of practice because, honestly, it was torture and the longer I went, the more I thought I'd lose it altogether. It doesn't quite work like that-- you do lose some things but some things are innate, locked into you. Writing was the same way. I can't say for certain it was confidence or 'the right time' but I do know that much had changed and I saw too much entitlement in myself with nothing MORE to back it up. Why can't people see what I've done and snatch me up? You'll notice that no matter how wonderful it feels to get a big response, people will just as quickly forget if you're not DOING, producing and working on something else. People will hesitate to invest in you if you tuck it all in after a victory. What makes writers like King so successful is he keeps popping another title in his library. It doesn't have to be solid gold-- people can hate it, but it keeps his name reappearing on those New Books lists before it ever fades out. Of course, there's no lack of talent and hard work in his case, but one thing that keeps creatives afloat is visibility. Stay relevant and it's not just your new work that flies off the shelves, it's the curiosity for the old work too.

I say this time and again, but you ultimately decide how far is far enough. But you're totally a dick if you're whining about something out of reach and have no intention of contributing towards getting it. "Oh, the pattern exists, but it's soooo expensive. Can I get it for free?"

Get out. Just... get out with that. It's just as nauseous when you're an 'idea person' wanting other people to write your damn book for you, but 'you'll pay them with royalties'. Or worse. Exposure. *shudders* If you want to gamble with your time and money to see your vision, fine and dandy. Don't undercut or undervalue the skills of others with entitlement. Entitlement never looks cute or even acceptable. Even if people are too polite to say it, they're disgusted with you.

Go ahead and pass it up if it's not that appealing to pursue. A parting shot is not a mic drop-- ride off into the sunset, quietly, and take your highest horse with you.