Born of frustration
I've actually held off on extreme personal venting for a while, mainly because I know this is public and who knows who will get to this. Granted, I think I know most of you who read this, but there's always that strange apprehension of giving away too much about myself in such a forum. That's kinda taken away from the point of this exercise, but oh well.

With that said, I am now keep asking myself if I'm any good at my job. I'm always surprised when people say they read my stuff, mainly because I'm under the impression that people only read ESPN and nothing else (especially based on all the links in my friends' blogs), thus not seeing my stuff. I'm often my own worse critic, as many people are, and I guess it gets magnified when I look over some of the competition. Add the fact that I'm working in a situation where it seems like people are allergic to complimenting people's work and ripping your colleagues seems to be a requirement for your job, you run into a crisis of confidence.

Am I being a bit too sensitive to this? Maybe. I'm also suspicious of most compliments, although that seems to come with the territory. Then again, from the general impression I get from just about everything out there, no one anywhere seems willing to appreciate anything. Right now, the line between genuine skepticism and paranoia gets blurrier every day.

I'll give Craig the credit for pointing me in this direction, but this song (down to the I-85 lyrics) seems to be an eerily good fit for the situation.