I am writing a lot these days on spirituality and life – my favorite subjects. I really love the part of life I am living, even though I don’t have a job and the future is completely uncertain. Sometimes, I feel as if I have bought these few months for myself from the world at the cost of the salary I am losing on. At other times, I feel as if I have gifted myself this time. In reality, I just try to dispel my fears of future by focusing on the beauty of the present.
The reason for writing is that these writings may add some value to the world by helping a few people get clear on a few things. Such clarity may help them have a few more smiles during their stay in the world. I would be happy if my work brings a few more smiles in the world.
It means that I am not writing for myself. I am writing for others; so that others could benefit. But as I write and share on my facebook wall the links to my posts, I have found myself repeatedly checking the facebook for likes, comments, and shares. I feel good to receive likes and appreciation and not-so-good when no one likes or appreciates. My happiness becomes directly proportion to the number of likes, shares, or appreciation comments.
When I feel this, I realise my happiness resides outside myself and is contingent on the reactions of others. When I understand this, I appreciate the dichotomy between my writings and my lived life. I somehow feel that my happiness should not be dependent on the responses of the other people. My worth should be dependent on my efforts and my intentions, not what others feel about my work. The only reason to look at the others’ responses should be to learn and grow and not calculate my worth.
As I was thinking these thoughts, a statement came to my mind:
I am what I do. How people respond is who they are.
This statement brought a lot of peace of mind to me and is perhaps correct, per my current understanding. If I am writing something spiritually worthwhile and others don’t appreciate it, it has to do with their interest and understanding, not mine. Similar is the case when I write something stupid but still, people can make something out of it.
So, when a person likes my post, it does not mean that my post is good; it means that the person got something out of it. This, in turn, reflects on the learning attitude of the person. If a person appreciates or finds my post great, it is the greatness in that person that the post has been able to bring out. Only when a person feels to have learnt something great that the person appreciates a post. To learn something great, the person needs to have great yearning and even great understanding.
Therefore, the responses to my posts tell me more about the people who respond than about my quality and worth. My agenda should be to learn and grow and do what I love. If others appreciate, it is good. If others don’t care, I don’t feel down since my worth is my work, not their appreciation.
It, however, does not mean that I don’t respect the criticism of the people. Actually, I love positive criticism since I get to learn from it. But getting criticism is not easy since people don’t criticize in the fear that it may spoil the relationship. On the contrary, I respect a person who criticizes me since it tells me that the person cares about me.