Photo by Gavin Allanwood on Unsplash

You Never Know When Your Best Work Will Come

Amanda Gorman will not have thought that on January 21st 2021, the world would know her name, and be lauding her work.

Maybe her profile will continue to rise. Poetry will be the (old) new zeitgeist cultural phenomenon and she’ll become a household name.

Perhaps not. It doesn’t matter.

Just because we’ve all heard of Amanda Gorman now, doesn’t mean she wasn’t a good poet two days ago.

There’s a difference between what we think is our best work and what the rest of the world thinks is our best work. The difference is attention.

Numbers, clicks, views, praise, and money are all forms of attention. Sometimes we chase them, sometimes we don’t.

All anyone can do is identify what they truly want to do, do it to the best of their ability and keep going.

Tomorrow, Amanda will be writing.