Imagine you’ve submitted a wonderful piece of writing to your English teacher, but she just said, “It could have been much better.”

Yes, it will hurt and make you sad. Everyone loves to be appreciated and be encouraged, be it a child or an adult. But the question is, how will you react if you are not recognised and appreciated by your teachers, parents, siblings, friends or any other person? Will you just simply put an end to your growth?

If yes, then ask yourself what is important to you — appreciation, applaud or your own satisfaction? Let’s admit that the world we are living in is full of all kinds of people, some will encourage and appreciate you, and some will pull your leg and demotivate you, despite knowing that you are doing great. So friends, appreciation from people can’t make you a graduate or their lack of appreciation can’t stop you from graduating.

You may encounter fake friends and relationships, in which people will appreciate you only on your face, but behind your back, they have no sincere feelings for you. Therefore, keep in mind that not everyone is your friend and not everyone is loyal towards you.

So what is appreciation and why do you need it? Appreciation is basically a reaction of satisfaction one feels towards someone or something. Now ask yourself, do you really want to work for the satisfaction of others or for your own satisfaction? For example, you love to eat cupcakes and you baked some for the first time. You served your family or friends, but none of them gave you a positive feedback, although they tasted good.

What will you do? Start crying? Start hating them? No, you should be happy as now you are capable of making cupcakes and can always satisfy yourself by making this yummy treat. So, what’s the point of caring about others’ opinions?

In the same way, when you’ve written a wonderful composition and you are like “What a good job I’ve done!”, but your teacher doesn’t appreciate or encourages you. All you have to do at that time is to think positive about your effort and say to yourself, “If I’ll make some more improvements, then I’m sure I’ll start writing better.”

Finally, I would say that whatever you do, just do it for your own satisfaction, for making yourself happy. Don’t do it because you want people around you to applaud or cheer for you. If you keep on thinking about others, you may not get the desired results from your efforts. Thus, work for the cause and not for the applause.

Published in Dawn, Young World, February 25th, 2023