BY GAJANAN H CHOUDHARI 

 

WE must have seen such people around who are publically appreciated. We feel proud of them and whine for such universal appreciation but it is not a word play. It is something which comes with a great deal. It means all who are being appreciated must have toiled hard to achieve such greatness, mustn’t they? Being curious, we try to get acquainted with them and most of the time our efforts get valued back, but in some cases we are hit back fruitlessly. When we peep into their personal profile, some unpolished chapters of their lives get unveiled and here arises an ethical question; how can one fool himself by false appreciation? Can Labelled flattery keep someone satisfied for a long time? We have a didactic poem ‘You start dying slowly’ of a Nobel prize winner poet Pablo Neruda where he says, ‘If you don’t appreciate yourself, you start dying slowly.’ It puzzled me initially. I thought if someone is appreciated all around what it needs to be self appreciated and does it make a difference?

 

And the incident opened my eyes. I used to have a student in my class. He was average in academics yet he came out with flying colours in the terminal exam. I was pretty happy for his sudden spring up. I lauded him and wished him to make it a habit. But he was less attentive to my words. The spark of success in his eyes was quite missing. I pondered if he might be nervous as he was not used to it. The whole day he seemed restless. After the departure bell when other students vacated the class, he was lingering in. Anticipating his inner turmoil, I broke the ice and I was appalled to see him crying. Letting myself be confused, I appeased him. It took fifteen minutes to subside his outburst. Then showing great trust in me, he confessed that it was not his distilled success what he had been appreciated for. And here I unfolded the mystery of the missing spark. Even if all had appreciated his efforts, not his soul which made his entire success in vain.

 

So, self appreciation is something which makes you taste the fruits of your success, it helps you to get sound sleep without any guilt. You can fool all but not your intuition. Other’s appreciation will please you for a day but your own appreciation will make you feel pleased everyday. Without it you will die thousands of times everyday on your bed before dying on death bed. After all, it is our own consent of living a true life rather than relying on others. Remember, no one can judge you better than yourself. So, do your duty honestly what you are handsomely paid for, get your self appreciation and live a contentful life free from all miseries instead working to make others happy for their decorative opinion. We all are in different professions. We are assigned for specific work and we are expected to do it with heartfelt devotion. It’s obvious that we all work for material gain but at the end of the day we realise the value of insubstantial gain and it comes from the soul so never let our soul be unrest in the absence of self appreciation because what it resonates matters…!