Why bother? Are you putting in effort for nothing?

Sometimes nothing seems to go right.
You run every day, do Cross Fit, eat healthily but you still can't complete a marathon.
You research, do character sketches, plot your novel, get it professionally edited but you still struggle to sell 100 copies of the book.
You spend money on marketing, get heaps of downloads when you offer your book for free but still fail to get any reviews.
You share what you have done with family and friends, they say good job, but they don't bother to read your novels or watch your videos and you know it's just empty meaningless praise.
(Not that I run or do Cross Fit or have any intention of running in a marathon but you get what I mean!)
You save money to travel to all the places on your bucket list but nobody is interested in hearing about your adventures.
Nobody cares.  They might say they do, but really they don't.
So why bother?
Why waste your time putting in effort when nobody gives a damn?
Why put in the effort when you never succeed.  Should we just not try?
How many times do you bend over backwards to make a relationship work, and you still end up getting stabbed in the back?
You never smoke, never drink in excess and still you get cancer.
You try and do the right thing over and over but nothing seems to work.
Everything is a constant struggle.  As if you are constantly running head first into a concrete wall.
If we are never meant to succeed, then should we even try?
Well, you have to ask yourself what constitutes success.  Is success getting recognition from others?  Is success some kind of financial reward?  Is success measured by the amount of followers or subscribers you have, the amount of views or downloads you get?  How do you measure your success?  Is success getting someone to love or like you?
Maybe we need to start doing things for ourselves and not doing it to please or impress others.
Leading a healthy lifestyle should be success enough without the marathon.
Completing a novel and getting it published should be enough of an achievement.
Learning skills to make a Youtube video should be a sign of success.
We need to start celebrating our achievements instead of rating them according to others' reactions to them.  Do things for yourself, set yourself goals and celebrate when you achieve them.  Don't base your success on what others think.  They don't know what you went through and have no appreciation for your journey.
We all live in our own bubble.  Sometimes our bubbles collide and become Venn Diagrams, but often they are just floating around oblivious to the bubbles near them.
People don't mean to not give a damn.  They are only concerned about their bubble.  They don't notice what is going on in yours.
If you are only writing a novel, running a marathon, making a Youtube video, propping up a relationship to please others, then you are doing it for the wrong reason.
You need to become selfish.  Do it to please you.  Do it because it makes you happy.  Do it because you enjoy being creative and learning new skills.  Don't give up, be resilient.  Bounce back.
Run in a half-marathon instead of a full marathon.  Nobody wants to read your novel, write another.  Read other books to work on your skills.  Nobody wants to watch your Youtube videos, continue perfecting your editing and filming skills and keep uploading new content.  Nobody wants to read your blog posts, so what.  Write them for yourself.  Get those words out of you.  Be resilient and bounce back.  Don't let others' apathy towards your efforts bring you down.
If selling a book was easy everybody would be doing it.  Nothing in life is easy and sometimes you don't see an immediate benefit for all the effort you put in.
Anyway, these are just some of my random thoughts on a miserable rainy day when I should be writing reports.

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Cindy Vine is a South African currently living in Norway.  She is the author of Not Telling, The Case of Billy B, Defective, CU@8, Hush Baby and The Freedom Club.  All her books are available on Amazon.com in both ebook and paperback format.  You can find out more about Cindy and her other books on www.cindyvine.com.  Should you wish to find out about some of the many countries she's visited, you can visit her travel blog www/cindyvinetravels.com.

The Hidden Advantage of Having a Big Bum

For most of my life I thought that having a big bum was a curse.  Two large bags of fat to sit on.  Jeans that never quite fit.  A mission to walk sideways through a narrow space.  Although there was one boyfriend many years ago that said I had a sexy bum but if I remember he was quite drunk at the time.  So in all probability his vision was blurred and he thought he was seeing double, when actually he wasn’t.  Sad but true.

Don't get excited, that's not my bum but it could be after watching Jamie Oliver's Sugar Rush on the plane.  I'm thinking twice about my sugar intake now and the sodas I drink.  This Coke I am drinking might be the last.  This is just a random Google bum.  But this is what my bum feels like on airplane seats.

Bums have suddenly come into fashion thanks to the Kardashian sisters.  Big is now beautiful in the eyes of the masses.  Some people are even getting butt implants. ( If you contact me I reckon I can give four people butt implants from my bum.  You can get them for free, just pay for my surgery to remove my slabs of lard.)  I have to say bumless bums are quite unattractive.  You know the ones where people are completely flat in the buttocks area so that their jeans sag.  It looks almost as if they were jumping onto the Metro and the doors closed on their protruding butt slicing the excess off.  Hey, maybe I should try that?

Besides being a slave to fashion and having a big butt, what could possibly be the hidden advantage you are probably asking.  Well, it's not to rest your backpack on and spare pressure on the small of your back.  (Mind you, a big bum does help with that!)  Let me tell you a little story that will illustrate the hidden advantage of having a big bum.  This was something I had never previously considered.  

When I checked in online for my flight to Vienna, it did not give me the option to select my seats.  On my boarding pass it said "Seat - None.  At first I found this quite distressing, then I thought maybe it was because I had been randomly selected to sit with the pilot.  So when I went to the Online Check-in Counter to drop off my bag, the flight attendant said, "Sorry the flight is full so you have to have a middle seat."

Then he smiled his simperingly sweet fake smile as if he really cared that I would be spending 9 and a half hours doing my sardine-in-a-can impersonation.  "I'm afraid on both the flight to Dubai and the flight from Dubai to Vienna you'll have to have a middle seat."  It had just got worse.  Now the 6 hour flight to Vienna would also be cramped.

I flared out my butt cheeks like an ostrich fluffs out their feathers before they attack.  "I'm sorry but I have a really big bum.  Can't you find me an aisle seat?"

He glanced at my posterior regions and reached for the phone.  "Hello, we need a disability seat," he communicated with his supervisor, nodding at me as if we were in some kind of secret conspiracy.

"I can give you an aisle seat on both your flights.  Enjoy your trip!"  And he handed me back my passport with the two boarding passes.

For a minute I stood there staring at him, not sure whether to be insulted or impressed.  Although I have often cursed my over-sized bum in the past, I had never really considered it a disability.  Now I am wondering if I qualify for the disabled sticker for my car so that I can get the good parking!

Cindy Vine is an author and teacher who lives in the beautiful city of Cape Town.  She is the author of Hush Baby, C U @ 8, Defective, Not Telling and The Case of Billy B.  All her books are available on Amazon in both Kindle and Paperback format.