Externals are nothing
Especially external validation and recognition.
Most people are slaves to externals. Chasing fame, the excrement of doing work in the public domain you’re not supposed to be eating. Chasing and desiring so much external validation and appraise to full whole themselves, but according to Marcus Aurelius and the other stoic philosophers this is in vain, worthless, and pointless. They’re just the opinions of fallible humans just like you, why place it on a pedestal? How truly valuable is it for people to know, and hate on you if you value yourself, and own opinion over others? If you have fame, that’s nice, but don’t dwell on it or allow it to define you. Because it doesn’t.
People will do something seemingly positive for you, but people will decide to absolutely hate you for it. For example, I was nominated for a Turing Prize, and AFP Lifetime Achievement Award. I don’t know why, I made contributions to computer science with software engineering, and philanthropic endeavors — life-long commitments. But I didn’t think I deserved such attention for those deeds. Two things completely out of my control. Nonetheless I got the email notifications and posted about it on Linkedin. I got plenty of hate. Not on Linkedin, but generally.
When you’ve done well and another has benefited by it, why like a fool do you look for a third thing…
