A friend just told me she won’t try out a new author unless they have thousands of good reviews on Amazon or Goodreads. My last book got about 20 good reviews after weeks of hustling. How do I keep going? How can I redirect my thoughts when the jealousy/despair hits?

Author: I worry you’re tracking your achievements using someone else’s yardstick. You’ve published a book. At some point in the past, that was the goal. So, you have already achieved one metric of success. Of course, we all harbor dreams of acclaim, but those dreams are so rarely right-sized. Do you want to be a famous author or do you want to be an author who is reaching readers who appreciate you?

This is a career field where jealousy waits around every corner, but other people’s success doesn’t take anything away from us. You’re not in competition with other authors, you’re in competition with your own expectations. Ask yourself: If you got thousands of reviews, would that feel like enough? You are already enough so let’s reframe your goals to help you feel that more often.

Your friend is entitled to her own selection process but thousands of reviews is an unrealistic number. To get that, any author, even the Emily Henrys and John Grishams, needs the support of dozens, if not hundreds of people employed by the big publishing houses. Meanwhile, you worked your tail off and got those 20 reviews on your own. That’s huge!

If there’s an author whose career you want to emulate, reach out to them to find out the nuts and bolts of how they got to where they are, but make sure that comparison will help you. As writer Freddie DeBoer recently pointed out in an issue of his Substack newsletter titled “Publishing is Designed to Make Most Authors Feel Like Losers Even While the Industry Makes Money,” “writing is also an intensely personal endeavor, and so rejection by the various apparatchiks who decide who’s in and who’s out can feel especially cruel.” Have a good think about whose approval you want (hopefully your own) and what you’re trying to achieve. Remind yourself that the authors you see may have different goals than you and probably also feel that old jealousy.

Lastly, I can’t say enough about building relationships with independent booksellers and librarians. Get to know the ones in your area. Even if you’re exclusively publishing e-books, these pros can help you understand the decision-making that leads readers to books, and eventually to those online review sites.

Dear Eric: I am in my mid-60s. Sometimes when I meet people I haven’t seen for a long time, say from college, I hear “you haven’t changed a bit.” Back then I had shoulder length hair. Today, I’m bald and what hair I have left is cut very short. How do I respond to such nonsense while maintaining a good attitude toward them?

— Hair Yesterday, Gone Today

Hair: I understand your sentiment as a fellow member of the shaved head club (it’s cheaper! It’s cooler! But oh the sunburns!). Still, you should take the compliment in the spirit it’s given. Of course you’ve changed physically, but maybe your energy is the same. Or maybe they just think it’s flattering. If the mood suits say, “Oh, I’ve changed — I got even better.”

Dear Eric: My partner (husband) and I have been together for 18 years. My sister-in-law created a “family tree” and gave copies to all family members as a gift. On closer inspection, my “husband” was left off the family tree indicating that I am single. My sister-in-law and her family do not believe in gay marriage. What should I do about this slight?

Marriage: It’s a good thing your relationship’s existence isn’t dependent upon what your sister-in-law doesn’t believe in. Long-term relationships aren’t Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, they’re mostly taking out the garbage and texting each other things to pick up from the grocery store. (They’re also emotional support, caretaking, and commitment, and all that good stuff.) I’m sure you’ve already had this banging-your-head-against-the-wall conversation with your in-law, but you should voice your displeasure about the tree as a way of setting an expectation about the respect you want. Once you’ve said your piece, throw the “gift” in the trash and order your own correct tree and give it to your family.

(Send questions to R. Eric Thomas at eric@askingeric.com or P.O. Box 22474, Philadelphia, PA 19110. Follow him on Instagram and sign up for his weekly newsletter at rericthomas.com.)

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Were that not enough, the country is faced with the prospect of twice-impeached felon and former president Donald Trump returning to the White House. The thought of the mendacious, narcisstic, vengeful Trump with those powers is terrifying. Dismiss the notion that “there’s no telling what he would do.” We know better. Trump and his inner circle have told us what he’ll do.

It falls to people who cherish and live by democratic values to stave off that danger. The courts won’t do it. President Biden, healthy or otherwise, cannot do it by himself. Only we, the people, can do what needs doing, to wit: reject Trump and all that he stands for at the polls on Election Day.

Yes, votes are there to keep Trump out of the Oval Office, as they were in the previous presidential election. Trump, simply put, can’t win with only his base of MAGA supporters and fellow travelers, no matter how rabid they are.

Don’t get hung up for the moment on who should be the Democratic standard-bearer. There’s plenty of time to get that sorted out. And there is a rich field of possibilities, should Biden, upon reflection and after broad consultations regarding his health and ability to serve, decide that now is the time to hand on the torch to an able successor.

I trust Biden to make the right call. I became a Senate staffer around the time Biden joined the Senate in 1973. As with other Washington watchers, I have seen Biden’s victories and setbacks through the years. Joe Biden, above all else, is a patriot. He will do what’s in the country’s best interest.

Better to keep focused, and spread the word to family, friends and neighbors, about the world that awaits them if Trump takes the oath of office.

Prosecutions will warp into persecutions. Political foes, real and imagined, in the press and online and in the politicians’ suites, will be subjected to Trump’s whims and power. Pardons and clemency will rain down like manna on Jan. 6, 2021, insurrectionists. Russian President Vladimir Putin will once again have a friend in the White House and an ally against NATO and the West. Immigrants and people from Muslim-majority countries will face an aggressively hostile federal government. Civil rights and LGBTQ+ progress will grind to a halt. The economy will function on behalf of the haves, to the detriment of the have-nots and the left-out. Oh, sure, Trump will go all out to create “Black jobs” — his racist reference to work left for people of color to perform.

So, right now and until Election Day, no matter who is at the top of the ticket, concentrate on defeating Trump and regaining Democratic control of the House and preventing a GOP takeover in the Senate. Visualize Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress. Can you imagine a Republican House doing anything to rein Trump in? A Republican Senate doing anything but acquiescing to any underqualified, politically subservient appointment he chooses to make? Can mules whistle? Armed with Roberts’s ruling, dictator Trump could operate with impunity.

Thus, here we are on the Fourth of July with democracy on the line.

Let this be the day a second Declaration for Independence is launched, proclaimed on behalf of people who reject the notion of an imperial president, and who hold dear democratic ideals and principles. Let us pledge to defend it with our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

But increasingly, what top Democrats appear to be saying is: Maybe he should.

The shift in tone is subtle, but it’s telling. These Democrats have increasingly treated this as a real possibility in ways you avoid if the name of the game is to batten down the hatches and stand by your man. And this is not coming from pundits, editorial boards or backbenchers; it’s coming from party graybeards and potential leaders.

In the aftermath of Thursday’s debate performance from Biden, former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) defended him. “We see Joe Biden up close; we know how attuned he is to the issues, how informed he is,” she said Sunday on CNN. She added: “It was a bad night. Let’s move on from that.”

But on Tuesday, Pelosi called it a “legitimate question to say is [Biden’s debate performance] an episode or is this a condition” — saying the same of Donald Trump, for good measure — and suggested this was a conversation Democrats needed to have.

“This is not a normal election where you want to win — if you don’t, you cooperate and do the best you can for the country and hope to win the next time,” Pelosi said on MSNBC. “This is something that is undermining our democracy. [Trump] must be stopped. He cannot be president. Therefore, people are very concerned.”

Pelosi added: “It’s going to be up to Joe Biden to do what he thinks is — there’s no more patriotic person in our country than this president of the United States. Nobody less than the former president. But Joe Biden — and so I trust his judgment.”

Rep. James E. Clyburn (R-S.C.), who until recently served as the No. 3 House Democratic leader, went even further in entertaining the scenario.

“Now, Joe Biden may decide otherwise [and drop out],” Clyburn said on MSNBC. “But I think the people that I’ve been around the last three days are dug in, in their support for Joe Biden.”

Clyburn even added that, should Biden drop out, the party should go with Vice President Harris as its replacement.

“I will support her if he were to step aside,” Clyburn said, while emphasizing he wants a Biden-Harris ticket. He added: “No, this party should not, in any way, do anything to work around Miss Harris. We should do everything we can to bolster her, whether she’s in second place or at the top of the ticket.”

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D), one of those speculated on as a possible replacement, went on CNN on Tuesday night and also treated this as an open question.

“Well, Joe Biden is our nominee, and ultimately that decision on continuing or not will fall to him and his family,” Beshear said. “But I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with asking the president to talk to the American people a little bit more about his health or that debate performance.”

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D), another talked-about presidential contender, also seemed to choose his words carefully Tuesday night on CNN.

“Look, right now, Joe Biden is our nominee,” Pritzker said. “And I’m 100 percent on board with supporting him as our nominee, unless he makes some other decision. And then I think we’re all going to be discussing what’s the best way forward.”

Pritzker even entertained alternatives like Harris, asserting that they could have broad appeal.

“I know there are people in the party that want people to just be quiet,” he said. “But the truth is I think people need to express themselves. We’re a party that accepts that. And I’m pleased about that. And then, we’ll come to a conclusion here. Joe Biden will come to a conclusion about it.”

He added: “Right now, unless he makes some other decision, discussing what’s the best way forward, Joe Biden will come to a conclusion about it.”

These are not the kinds of things you say if this isn’t something you want Biden to at least think about. And they are a marked contrast to the Biden campaign’s line that this just isn’t a consideration at all.

These Democrats are careful to caveat their comments by citing Trump and saying they stand by and support Biden if he stays. But these experienced politicians know those comments will only feed questions about whether Biden can or should continue. You don’t entertain those questions unless you think it’s a vital conversation, because the conversation itself could damage Biden by elevating these concerns.

At least for now, they’re keeping that conversation going. And the Biden campaign’s efforts to tamp it down aren’t working.