Craving for Recognition

Do you ever crave for recognition? I am not talking about praise, name and fame but recognition. A gesture that would make you feel accomplished. Everybody wants to be successful and accomplished in life. According to my view, it doesn't mean that you have to be CEO of a company or President of a country or life-saving doctor to feel successful. It all depends on what you do and how it is received. A mother feels a sense of accomplishment if she hears someone tell her that she has raised her child well. It is a moment of pride, an assurance, and recognition. A teacher feels that successful not when his/her student becomes a highly educated, highly paid professional but when one of her student meets the teacher, gives her due respect and spends a few minutes talking about his/her class years after they have passed out of school.

You can claim success only if you are recognized. I feel this craving is in our very nature and is the cause of all problems. A lady is called a good wife, good DIL, a good daughter, a good mother, a good employee, a good citizen if she supports and does good to her husband, her PIL family, her parents, her children, her company and her community society respectively. But you can claim those nice titles only if you are recognized. Only if your husband tells you that you are good and supportive only then you can think yourself as a good wife. The difference is you can be a wife and manage the household but to be recognized as a "good" wife you have to be recognized by your husband.

One another way, you could be content and feel accomplished is that you separate yourself as "physical body" and the eternal soul. So, the soul which is stable and is not disturbed by any external factors could recognize that your physical self is being good and that it only does good things to all the people around it. This is why you see people who have realized this truth being happy and peaceful. The reason for this inner peace is that they get recognized by themselves and never depend on others fro assurance and in the end they do not have to prove anything to anybody. If someone recognizes them beyond themselves, they take it in their stride and tie it to their physical body. I am not talking about saints; I am talking about people who are very much among us, living their lives but are not disturbed by external factors and are always at peace. They seem to be not interested in trivial matters, they seem to ignore petty issues and it is almost always impossible for these kinds of people to get offended or hurt by others.

To conclude, take some time, sit back, reflect on things and try to give yourself some recognition. Try to understand why you fell short of recognition even after doing things above and beyond others expectation. Also give some recognition to your husband, children, PIL, parents, co-workers, neighbors and friends. Again it is not recognizing the bad things that they have done and said to you but the good ones!

Cheers!
Radheshyam.

 

Thank you for the feedback Cheeniya Sir. I have read many of your articles in IL and have great respect for your thoughts. But, I couldn't agree (rather understand) with your FB about my post.
Also, I like a no-string-no-prejudice attached debate as it helps me learn something new from the other person.

First point:
In my post, I wrote that everyone craves for recognition and that is the cause of all problems. I wanted to convey the message our need for recognition makes us do things to please others and when the desired reaction is not received, we get angry, frustrated, stressed and hurt. What I wanted to say is that analyze your actions and appreciate the good things you do and do not depend for assurance from external sources. Doing this you feel peaceful and you continue to do what you are doing. Finally when you are not agitated and when you are at peace you are surely doing the right thing!

But, you mentioned that Recognition is a reward and we should not plan our actions based on the reward. You wrote that when we do a good thing we would get a positive vibe to it. Like you do something and people around you are happy. Don't you think it as a form of recognition, a feeling that you are doing the right thing?


Second point:
I understand the inner meaning of detachment and understanding that God is the one who is making you do all the actions. But I doubt that a person living a normal day-to-day family life amidst the society could claim that GOD is responsible for all his/her actions and that he /she does not care about the result of their actions.

Third point: You mentioned that a renowned sculptor should just do his duty of sculpting a statue and should not be focused on the outcome. Agreed. How can he call himself a sculptor? By birth, we have some vasana and we develop our talent based on this vasana. But unless someone evaluates his works and appreciates him or he himself feels good about his work and he would not have decided to work on his vasana and pursue it as his duty or career.

Finally, this is more like a request for clarification and to add it my KB !)
Also, you wrote the Gita says "We must do our duty and leave the results to God". I have seen different people take this differently. The Lord said this to Partha after explaining his duties – Arjuna's duty of standing up for what is right. Arjuna's mind was restless; <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" /><st1lace w:st="on">Krishna</st1lace> explained why he is there in the battlefield and what is expected of him. My question was how do you know what is your duty and what you consider as your duty may be evil or disastrous for others; but you still continue to do it ? I also understand that the Gita explains that everybody is born with duty (per their caste) and that even though they are faulty they should not abandon them. The reason He says that all undertakings are surrounded with evil, like the pure fire surrounded by smoke. So is it necessary for evil to be present in this world for and that we cannot do anything about it ? I interpret this as a person is being born with good and bad qualities. Like the whole Mahabarata war is going on inside us and that we should reassure, appreciate and recognize the good qualities in us and fight the evil or bad qualities in us.

Cheers !
Radheshyam.