I am planning on starting a series on my youtube channel titled the Writing While ________ series where I will talk about writing while faced with different challenges. Right now, I'm writing while broke and it's one of the most disheartening thing that I have ever had to deal with. I have never had tons of money or anything, but since being an adult I've had even less. I'm not a 9-5 girl. I'm not the "I've always dreamed of becoming a doctor" girl either. I'm a dreamer. A creative. A lover of pretend, make-believe, and twirling in circles down hills. I've never wanted to do traditional work and I still don't.
I feel selfish even writing about this. It's such a first world problem that I can't afford to buy new socks or go to Starbucks as much as I want when people are literally staving to death both in America and around the world. I can hear the echoes of voices telling me that I should stop complaining because I have a roof over my head, I have a car, I have food, I have a job, and healthcare (expensive healthcare, but care nonetheless).
Just because some people have it worse than you doesn't mean that you have to be satisfied with what you have. Does the person who only has a daily bowl of rice to eat have less of a right to be unhappy than the person who only has rice a few times a week? No. They are both not being fulfilled. Both are not living up to their full potential. Both are in lack.
By world standards, I am far from poor. However, I can't afford to buy myself or my family clothes, get my eyebrows waxed, medication, doctor copays, shoes, gas, food, dog toys, an editor, cover designer, ISBN's, underwear, socks, basically anything of necessity or entertainment value. It's demoralizing to have to depend on everyone else to supply your basic needs of life and frankly, I don't know how I'm going to break out of it. I keep panhandling my editing services, trying to get ahead, but nothing is going how I want it to. I can't write because my brain is preoccupied with am I going to have enough to survive.