Letting my insecurities rule in blogland

I started my blog and using the wonderful templates, I tried to customize it. I changed it around a few times. But now I have my own little pink, blue, and purple pages. It is not pink due to pinkificiation. It is pink because I like pink. But I digress.

Then I started looking at other people's blogs. Theirs are so much better than mine. They put in pictures. I rarely put in pictures because that means I have to remember to  upload the pictures from my camera to my computer. I just uploaded more than six months of pictures so there is hope for the coming weeks. I usually stick with comics that I like.

They get lots of comments and have hundreds of followers. I have 65 followers (and I am proud of all of them) but some people have 300-400. Why not me?

They have nicely designed blogs with images, and funky text, and all sorts of things. My blog is pretty boring in its pinkness. Would you know from looking at my blog that I work on lots of websites and people pay me to do so? Why isn't my blog prettier with more followers and more comments? I'm not good enough.

I am not providing any links to these blogs which are better than mine. They are all better than mine (except for the ones that have a single entry from four years ago that says 'I just started my new blog and I'll be sure to update it every day.') My blog is just not that great. Just like I could not write the great American Novel (and if you asked my high school English teacher, I couldn't even write a decent essay), I will never be able to write the great American Blog.

It turns out I am not just insecure about this. I have a new ailment called blog envy. Isn't that one of the deadly sins? Envy Grr. I usually do not compare myself much to others. I don't really care if my clothes are the latest style - they have to be clean and comfortable, or my hair is perfect - I do wash and brush it daily but often not much more, and my house clearly is not the cleanest - the maid has had the last decade off. I am what I am and I call it like I see it. But I do have blog envy.

You read those other perfect, fancy blogs, with lots of comments and followers. People manage huge families, large businesses, save the homeless, recycle everything, and are completely perfect. Or so they claim. Can they be?

Over at Shabby Blog, there is a post on how to blog and not have blog envy. Yes its a pretty blog and I am linking to it so you can see her followers and comments (84 and counting on this single post). Her list on blogging is:

1. Be original
2. Respect other's originality
3. Blog blindly
4. Be kind
5. Blogging isn't everything

Wait that can't be right! Blogging isn't everything? Well then maybe I'll be insecure about something else. Do these pants make me look fat?