The Devil IS the Details

I am an expert overthinker. I overthink everything, even grocery shopping. I overthink and over analyze, over research, and over compare. As a creative person pursuing a creative life, it is the compare that traps me. It is studying (stalking) the details of other artists’ lives and careers and overthinking why I am not there with them.

I would get a life sentence if it was a crime to compare my life to others. I do it constantly. I sit and dissect every step I assume they took to get where they are and I place it next to mine. I see my mistakes, my choices that led me to where I am and not to where they are. It is these details I scrutinize over that will kill me slowly.

It is no secret I feel behind since I lived in Vermont for three years. I am not sure where I expected to be; I imagined many different scenarios and none of them match exactly with where I am. It’s a constant struggle not to let them weigh me down and take me out of even trying to get back in the game. And I am in the game. Not exactly as I was before but I am in it and playing.

But that’s just it, isn’t it? I’m not playing the same way so it feels different and when I look at those pesky details of other lives, it doesn’t match. It looks wrong. It makes me want to trash it all and go back to what I was doing.

I can’t do that, though. The way I was playing was draining, exhausting, frustrating. I wasn’t happy. I was miserable and hating this life I chose instead of relishing the moments where I got to do what I loved. I got to act, I got to write, I got to create. They were no longer sweet to me. They had turned bitter. So why am I longing for them again? I got into them by following every step everyone else took instead of listening to what I needed and wanted.

I am tangled up in the web of details again. I see a person I consider successful; someone I admire and the spark of jealousy ignites. I think “I wonder how they got there” and then I dive in. At first, it’s simple. I think about what they’ve been working on, who they know, little things that add up. Then I sink into the black hole: the details. I find myself obsessed with finding loopholes or secrets that are not available on the surface. Instead of wanting to pick their brains in a productive way, I instead stalk the hell out of them and absorb every move I can find in a toxic manner. Each step they took that I never did stabs at me and I can feel a poison in my veins. It sucks all my energy and motivation out because it is all I can see: the details of their life compared to the details of mine.

The productive way to do this would to ask them about their journey and reflect on the details as ideas and not failures I have made. Every journey to success in any world is different. There is no right or wrong way to achieve your goals but there are patterns and suggestions that may help if they have worked for others. Instead of becoming obsessed with the intricacies of decisions of others, take a step back and look at the bigger picture, the bigger choices. Every circumstance is different and analyzing the details of someone else’s won’t help you. If someone books an incredible gig and you take it apart and see it was because they finally got a great manager that sent them out properly, that detail could destroy you. It’s easy to be jealous of that one little thing that worked for them after years of hustling and trying all the things you did. Now Trevor is on an NBC show and you are eating leftover Chinese watching him on your couch. You should be happy for Trevor but you’re bogged down with the details of how he got there because it is something you don’t have or have yet to achieve. He got it before you did; you focus on the details to find out why.

I’ve learned to fuck the details. If you want to do something, you have to go out and actually do it. You may ask why did they get it before me but that isn’t what you need to be asking. Letting yourself be buried under the circumstances of everyone else and the jealousy that piles on with it won’t get you anywhere. The detail about Trevor should inspire you to find a great manager or agent! Or perhaps it was a class someone took and they made a connection that help further their career. Maybe it was honest, non stop hustling that finally got someone booked. Or a commitment to writing every damn day until that novel was finished.

The details can destroy you. They’ve destroyed me in the past and I am close to letting them crawl all over me again. I think about my age, my finances, my place in the world as a person and an artist and they haunt me. I can’t shake so many of the decisions I’ve made and regrets I have. I hope at the end, I see them only as markers in my bigger story. Little details that define who I am and what I become. Bad or good, it is all part of the same journey.

Details can matter but they do not have to define you. They do not have to limit goals or ruin lives. They are important to notice but not to consume. I’ve tried to catch myself before becoming intoxicated with them. It works most of the time. It helps to say ‘fuck it’ a lot to them when the get to you. You won’t get anywhere letting the devil whisper in your ear.