Be Kind to Your Mind

Last night I told myself the thing I'd drafted wasn't a poem: Real poems take long stressful craft sessions, and are serious, and this one entertained me so vastly I read it aloud several times laughing. Then I invented excuses for it: "It's kind of a theater piece," or "You could work on this so it'd be in couplets and then it'd be good," & c. Told myself everything in the world except, "Hey, you just drafted a 60-line poem -- that alone is pretty great; congratulations."

Making some kind of trivial mistake ("What'd I come in here to get? Can't remember") I have been catching myself calling myself "Stupid!" "What a dodo-brain," "Nobody else would be so incompetent," etc.

Have I sat myself down today and said, "You rock! You're doing a pretty good job with your life. You are so well-read, so together, and a creative artist! What discipline, what fire," and so on? I've got a good mind. Why am I not kind to it -- as kind and generous as it has been to me?