There is always somebody who's better than you, so

[DasIstWunderblyat]

There is always somebody who is better than you in any aspect. When you feel satisfied your art for that new page on webcomic, you see a god-tier "sketch" art posted in forum for fun. When you are happy thinking your plot is refined enough, you see this one with groundbreaking idea. It's never enough, you'll never lived to be the best or the better.

What makes you still try even though you know you'll more likely fail? Why people don't mind being drained and hurt to fulfill imaginary goals in their mind? Is passion just another kind of drug that intoxicate you with dream? What is the purpose of persistence? Why people can fail and drowned in slum thousand times without getting bitter?

I might sound desperate but that's not it, it's just amazing to see human with their own endeavors lasted to struggle in uncertainty. How could such be of a being?

[MissionFailure]

"Even if your work is a Potato; Post it up anyways.
If Potatoes were shitty, french fries would never make money."
-my butt

Don't compare your fries to nuggies my friend, both are delicious.

[DasIstWunderblyat]

But what if there was a juicier, crunchier, and more delicious potato around?

[MissionFailure]

Fries are made from many potatoes, you can't eat just one.

So what if there's another comic or picture out there you think is better than yours? Good, now you have a new goal post for your work.
Give 'em your potato.

Guess what, people love potatoes, and they want to eat more potatoes.
Give 'em your potato.

Your old potato kinda looks wrinkly and dry? It was tasty while it lasted, look at the new potato you made.
Give 'em your potato.

Surrounded by potatoes? Well they grow in fields anyways and people still ask for more.
Give 'em your potato.

[Jenny-Toons]

Welp -- time to pour in some good old tender, love, and care into this post.

Whoo darling, lemme tell you. It's just common sense that someone out there will be better than me. Just like it's common sense I'll be better than someone else. We're all human, and we all strive in things differently. I go into anything knowing this already, and honestly, that puts me at ease.

For me -- failure = growth. If I haven't failed yet, it means I haven't applied myself hard enough. It means I didn't allow myself room to improve. So if I fail? I'm happy -- means I got room to improve and grow and get better. And someone being better means they have something to teach me. They too were once in my shoes and they had to face someone being better than them. It's a cycle of growth, of learning and sharing knowledge.

That and...well, let's be honest. We're not on earth long enough to be worrying about people who are better than us in certain things. If I allowed myself to always think "why even bother, someone else did it better", I wouldn't get anything done. I wouldn't be able to find joy in the things I do.

The key is being ok with not being perfect and find perfection in the things that make us happy.

I love art. I'm not DaVinci or Michelangelo, but I don't care. I do what I do because I want to share my stories, because I want them to be real, and because I wanna sit back and read them myself.

There may be someone better at art than me, but only I can make the stories I wanna make come true.

[silverraven0]

For me, maybe it simply because I love my works and characters in the novel and comic I made. If I could make them to come to live, why not?

I'm a person with low self esteem and is quick to be drained of motivation, and even thought I know my works is s*tty, I kept on making them anyway (at least when I got the motivation...)
_(:3/ )√-

But its still could be called a learning experience and making it possible for me to be able to grow. Who knows, maybe I could become the God tier artist in the future (I'm bluffing). XD

[MariMontoya]

Human resolve. We are masters at failing, for we believe that in the thousands of times we go down there will be that one time that everything works out.
Also of course there's always someone better. There will always be someone better. That's not meant as a discouraging factor it's just a fact of life. There will also be someone worse (not meant as an encouraging factor per say but just a fact).
So don't worry about those people. You can learn from them and all but you do you. What is success to you? To fulfill the impossible? To be like that someone? or to know that at the end of the day you've done everything that you could?
Goals are very important to me. They're not impossible, dreams are. When it comes to my writing I know I'm just so so. I know there are thousands upon thousands of better people than me. That's a fact. I also know I'm improving. I also know that every little comment readers make on my story makes my day. I know that no matter what that I've tried and that I love what I'm doing. That's most important to me. It's why I write.
And for you. You do what you love. You make things that you want to, you create your stories that you want to share, and you draw your art. bc thats what matters and should matter to you. ️

[DasIstWunderblyat]

Great point about "...We're not on earth long enough..." fortunately maybe, human short lifespan is what make them so persistent about their effort. I always wondered if humanity would be the same in terms of ethos and resilience if they were given much longer life span?

"There may be someone better at art than me, but only I can make the stories I wanna make come true." thumbs up this

[DasIstWunderblyat]

I do understand being invested and loving with your creation Maybe in the same way in a parent loving their imperfect children, a person who is loving someone with flaws, or the weird dog at shelter a person decides to adopt; even though other than them people disagree with their love, they still show it.

I hope you can become one!

[AVXP]

There is always somebody who is better than you in any aspect.

Not true.
I am the best at being me. I am the undisputed champion ....of being...me.
a) You only feel this way because you are not doing anything that is uniquely you. You are indeed, just following a trend/path/curve and trying to do what everyone else is (already and currently) doing. So much so that you can compare two things that should be objectively impossible to compare. There should only be subjective opinions.
What DO YOU LIKE better than what?

b) Styles make fights. Anyone can like any style over another. Anyone can like some aspect over some other aspect. Anyone can give more weight to a certain aspect than someone else. That's why contests have judges. Even things that are timed have judges involved. Your comic and art, no matter good or bad you think it is, is just a style. It's either a developed style or it's not. Either you've mastered your style or you haven't. Once you get past the entry-level technical concerns, it's all artistic judgments.

c) The best don't always win. Persistence and tenacity are qualities of winners. In any race, you run your lane and don't look sideways- that slows you down. Run as fast as you can and worry about being faster (or better) than you were yesterday.

d) The "best" and favorite are two different things. You don't need to be the best, but being a good number of people's favorite will get you in some important races. That amount of people will determine your lane position. Your business moves [behind the scenes] can give you a head start, but that's another topic for a different day.

e) Go back and re-read a).

[Jenny-Toons]

I always wondered if humanity would be the same in terms of ethos and resilience if they were given much longer life span?

I kinda feel that we'd only keep improving as time went on. Even if we had immortality, there's still so much out there we ca explore. We would just have more time, basically all of the time in the world, to evolve, get stronger, and improve even more!

[mariusthered]

as someone who has gone past his best level (i'm getting old) i will tell you guys that you do start to loose your skill as you get older. it's just life you loose some skills as you gain others. just make art for yourself sod everyone else.

[LT1986]

Thank you for making the forum topic. When I see the work of others, I get inspired if I believe that the work is better than mine. It shows me that there are higher levels to try to reach. Without seeing better work from others, I might think that I'm the best and see no need to improve. This is similar to working out to me. I get motivated when I discover from someone else that they do different exercises or more repetitions of exercises to get in better shape than me or have a better physique than me. I prefer to see better work from others than for me to be the best.

[Lady_DarkStar]

I'm reminded of a poem I once heard that I really wish I had a copy of. Your floor may be my ceiling. It isn't about who is better than you, or meeting someone else's standards. It is about doing something to the best of your ability. It's about self worth. Only you know if you did the best you could, or said that's good enough and gave up. In the end, the only opinion that matters is yours.Only you can say you are a failure or a success. Only you can truly know if you sat on the floor, or in a chair, or got on a ladder and hit your ceiling.

[Rosso]

i get a lot of comments saying how much they looove the way i draw the wolf/wolves
or how cute or cool i draw this character. or how pretty the way i draw the eyes... etc.

if my readers love the weird plot/premise/the way i draw things as they are
then this kind of support is more than enough to keep me going : >

even though i'm more than aware that there are many others a million times better than me.
this is just
good enough for me

[SilentHamster102]

Well, I'm doing it all because I'm bored with my life and apart from drinking, there is absolutely nothing to do IRL around here. And I don't care if I'm bad at things I do, until I have fun with it

[monotone_ink]

The reason I continue drawing webcomics despite knowing there are people out there better than me is because STUFF YOU, I LIKE MAKING THEM, WEBCOMICS BANZAI (just kidding I love you, but webcomics banzai nevertheless).

My main goal here is that I'm trying to leave behind something meaningful, in the hopes that other people will read my art and find something meaningful.
Mortality is scary, so I'm using a backdoor method of keeping myself alive a little bit longer if I ever die early. So in this sense, it doesn't matter if someone is better than me at something - as long as I get the chance to make something and present it to the world and have people respond to it in meaningful ways, it's all g. Yep, all g. I'm sorry, I just finished reading Ashita no Joe and man it is so hype, here's an image:

[Kann]

I am aware that there's always someone better, but I enjoy what I create and try to improve on the way not to be better than that other person, but for my own work to be better. Comparing yourself to other people is a shortcut to a burnout, since you'll always be frustrated you're not as skilled as that other artist.

[fischhead]

When you find someone better, you learn from that person. Maybe you won't ever be the best, but you'll be much closer than if you simply gave up.

Almost 10 years ago, a friend and I got one of our projects critiqued at Comic Con. We had been working on it for close to 2 years, and we were REALLY proud of what we had accomplished. We got shot down, however, and were basically told to mimic their best-selling author at the time.

I was FURIOUS, and that anger led to determination, which led to me redrawing everything we had at that point. I bypassed their artist and looked at even better ones to see where I could improve. As a result my artwork and storytelling are infinitely better today than they were back then. I'm happy I tried, because that's more than most people will ever do.

[nekoendy]

On every god-art sketch there's a hidden mountain of work that nobody sees...