Look…I know. I know how this goes. Some­one has put out some­thing truly cool. It’s awe­some. It’s amaz­ing. It’s looks like the think sprang forth from the creator’s mind like Athena from Zeus’s brow, mag­nif­i­cant, gor­geous, and intimidating.

You want it. Of course you do. You not only want it, though — you wish you had done it. You leave your day job, get home,  sit in front of your com­puter and start to pund out words, or draw, or what­ever it is that you do. And after about ten min­utes, the idea has dried up, and you think, “Man…this is HARD.”

No shit, Sherlock.

Impor­tant safety tip: you can­not bor­row a booster rocket. You see the other guy burn­ing brightly in the sky, like a star. You can­not just steal their fuel and use it for your­self. It doesn’t fit. You didn’t earn it.

Envy is a poor fuel. It burns too quickly. It’s sour. It’s poi­so­nous. It does not satisfy.

Let their work inspire you. Let their drive help keep you in check. Remem­ber that, even though it looks like they just birthed The Cool Thing from out of nowhere, know that they have been work­ing on it for months —  if not years.

They had to do the work. Now it’s your turn. Skip the envy. Go build your own rocket.

Christo­pher T. Miller

Christo­pher T. Miller is a soft­ware devel­oper by trade and a writer by neces­sity. He is one of the co-founders of Podiobooks.com and is the Over­lord of The Secret Lair. He has not yet been eaten by a grue.