I can no longer count how many times I've tried to coordinate some type of

Writing

group. I remember each iteration I'd begin thinking "this is the time" as in I would believe that some in the group -- including myself -- were going to be writing 'here' 'together' until one day we would all be known as writers.

I thought this way even as early as the

college

days. I never once thought that it was impossible to write our way to publishing one day in 

Harper's

or 

The New Yorker

. All we had to do was continue to write together I thought.

This would lead to much frustration when people began dropping off. I'd begin to feel like a basketball player with no team. I'd turn to

self-help

  books and podcasts to rile myself up. I'd watch these successful people and relate myself to them. Then I'd look at the group members and start painting negative narratives in my head about how they were just average and weren't going to ever be like me or the 

podcast

guests because they were just regular people.

The negativity was abundant. But at the time I would never think of it as something toxic. I'd always paint it as 

ambition

. I being the person with it and the rest without. After much iteration I've grown more aware of this cycle. After much iteration and reflection I've become more open to what it means to me.

All these iterations of trying to string together a writing group, I have always pretended to believe I was trying to help others. This belief is why when others would drop out I would get upset. I would think that they were being ungrateful or were wasting their own potential.

More recently in the past year or so I've come to realize -- not just with my head but in my life -- that all this time I was trying to "help others" I was only trying to get myself to write. Now when I learn that someone no longer has the desire to write, I understand.