Desperate Lensmasters

I've taken Squidoo too seriously at times. When it seemed my ability to bookmark my lenses on Tagfoot would be taken away, I had meltdowns. All 3 or 4 or...however many times it's been now. Squidoo is the only income I can count on coming in every month. I never know if anybody is going to buy my art and massage clients cancel when they feel the money crunch.

I've noticed something from time to time among lensmasters. It's called desperation. I feel it too. Desperate to get that single five star rating to pull the lens out of oblivion. Desperate to get more and more ratings, backlinks, traffic, ad commissions, backlinks, traffic, comments...did I mention backlinks and traffic?

It's a virtual squid race. And you know what, it's not very attractive. It's actually repulsive. I know I am actually driving people away even as I'm shrilly demanding that I get more attention. Why didn't more people rate my lens? Why can't I get that lens in the Top 100? Why is that lens in the 80,000s? When am I going to make that one lens that everybody wants so I can make $1000 a month or more? (Or even, when am I going to bump up another $60 a month?)

It occurs to me that this is the kind of behavior that gets me, and others like me, thrown in with used car salesman and door-to-door vacuum pushers on social bookmarking sites . Nobody OWES me a rating, or even a visit to my lens. Nobody cares that I'm poor. And they don't have to.

From what I understand, really successful people don't push themselves on the populace. They wait for people to come to them, like a lion waiting for the herd to come closer. They also don't try to do everything at once. They take little baby steps and keep quietly practicing their craft, making small adjustments to their course along the way. They don't bite off more than they can chew, expect more than is reasonable. And they don't expect anybody to give them anything.

I think THAT is the way to true success as a lensmaster. In the end the drama only leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth and no increase in money in the bank.