Mast & Flag

What is it about a job that gives us that feeling of security? Money. Survival. Self-worth. Sense of self tied to approval. I am dependent on looking good. On being ok. Stamp of approval. Because I have been hired. By someone else. This is the distinction. I can create my own work. My own projects that make income. But when it's all dependent on looking good, what other people think, getting approval, then it waivers, like a flag in the wind. Why do we do the work? Why do we write? For comments? For likes. For someone to say, "You're awesome." I approve of you. You have made it. You are competent. But what if it isn't liked. What if someone disapproves. Dislikes. Is it not the same thing? And if all our work is dependent on what other people think, we are forever at the whims of circumstance, of people's opinions. Waiting for yes or no. What if we created our work, art, writing, presentations, interactions, projects, as an expression of us, as a vehicle for our own brilliance to flow out? And then acknowledged both the compliments and criticisms as the effect of that art. As expressions in their own right, of other artists, everyone standing in who they are, grounded, rooted, being the mast, not the flag.