"What people in the world think of you is really none of your business."
- Martha Graham, American dancer and choreographer (1894–1991)
With respect, dear reader, note the final two words of the quotation that are different from what we might otherwise expect.
One of the harder life lessons I have learned is that the negative and destructive opinions of others about me or my work do nothing to enhance my life. Opposition and naysaying come from different places. The naysayer wants to hit and run, not debate.
We need some opposition in order to grow. Without some thought to think against, we have no traction or motivation to think further.
We don't need to win debates in order to grow. Everything we learn, even from an opponent, can be used later to our advantage. As the old war saying goes: you learn more from your enemies than you do from your allies.
In the final analysis, only one person gets to live your life, to experience your woes, your sadness, your trials and tribulations, your moments of elation and joy. You are the most important member of your own cheering section.
In order to win praise from others, once the heady days of childhood where every drawing finds a place on the refrigerator, we need to be good at something. Not the best, just better than all or most others in our circle of acquaintances.
If what we are good at also benefits others, then we get greater recognition. For example, we may not remember who got the most gold medals for our country in the last Olympics, but we remember a friend or teacher who helped us through a period of strife.
We don't have to be the most talented, the most skilled or the most muscular/pulchritudinous to receive the kind of recognition we need over a lifetime. These tend to be fairly short-lived attentions. We need to be good at something that would be deemed of some value to others or from which others can learn. In a chess club, that would be skill at chess. At a dance, it might be skill at dancing or at helping partners feel good.
In every community there are people who deem it their job to point out to others the faults and failures of as many people as they can. If we listen to these people, whether they speak about us or about others, we give them something they don't deserve. We don't deserve it either.
When helping a young person to decide what they may want to excel at in life, advise them to choose something that will last for a very long time, if they want recognition that will extend for many years.
And to not give the naysayers the recognition they desire.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to help each person avoid too much sightseeing on the road of life.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
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Comments: 13
Socrates hit a home run when he created the notion of the dialectic. We learn from discussion, questioning, and synthesis.
I read recently about some guys that re-invented the grocery cart. I'll bet that they had no end of people that told them that they were chasing their tails. They are now laughing all the way to the bank.
I firmly believe in the saying "That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger." If you are afraid to fail you will aways cave in to the status quo.
I love what Thomas Edison said about the 2000 tries in making the light bulb. "I now know how to not make a light bulb."
Reid Cornwell
It's a nice pat on the back to be chosen for the Gather home page again.
Shelley, I have worked for many years to write in a way that will speak directly to the heart or the soul of my readers. That's what good writing is about. Sometimes I even succeed.
In many cases, I merely confirm what my readers have suspected but had not put into words themselves.
Angie, naysayers have an attitude problem that is similar to an addiction. I mean that literally, in the sense that the brain acts in roughly the same way as it does in an addict in certain given circumstances.
I hope to write more about mental conditions that are similar to addictions soon. One, in particular, has to do with mates who go into the equivalent of withdrawal when the other leave their home for good.
"[Y]ou move mountains with merely your words" is an extraordinary compliment. When my book becomes more popular I hope to accomplish that in a real sense. The world really will change when it learns what the book has to teach. Thank you again.
What this less teaches us is that we have to provide the balancing arguments against accepting what everone else says as if it came from God. Ideally we do this at the same time, when the kids are young and with regular application after that.
Keep it up, Carla. You seem to be teaching your kids that all people are interdependent. Advertising, for example, teaches them that everyone is dependent (on the industries that produce products that meet needs that are really only preceived (created in an advertising agency).
We want interdependent adults, not independent adults. As much as we use the word "independent" to refer to our desire for our children in the future, we really should say "interdependent." Independent adults are social rejects, which is a tough row to hoe.
Thank you for this valuable article.