You cannot applaud your own story

This just made me chuckle, I was looking at a story that I published last week, and to my surprise and delight, it had 50 claps. Not that that is an underlying reason that I feel satisfied with sharing that story, but it does contribute to it. I’m happy that it reached some people and that they were affected by it enough to click the applause button, and as my mouse hovered over the clap sign; curious about who virtually applauded me, I was met with the headline comment on my screen.

You cannot applaud your own story.

Why not?

Why can’t I applaud my own story?

I like my life, I like what I write. I resonate with it, so much so that I decided to share it. That’s applauding my own story.

I feel like it’s a hard thing to do, to share your story, and I also feel like that comment is an intrinsic rhetoric in our society:

You can create something, but you better not show any pride in it, or confidence. Otherwise you’ll be a bighead, or a diva etc. In Britain I often hear:

“They’re talented aren’t they!”

“Yeah, but they know it.”

Why is it bad to know that you’re talented, or have confidence in yourself?

It seems to be a collective thought of people who believe that if someone is achieving something, it’s a reflection on their own underachievement. When in reality comparison is never truly possible, we each contribute our own precious jewels to the crown of life, and we can never know the full picture of the person that we compare ourselves to.

Now we come to the counter argument in all this. Pride comes before a fall. I feel like that is such a well known saying because that sense of pride is unaware. Pride is an expansive feeling, it expands your consciousness, it makes you feel infinite and indestructible, which can be amazing, but you also start missing the minute details. Missing these details leads you to become unaware of your situation, and therefore you’re not aware of your reality. Inevitably you misperceive your circumstances and head for the fall.

What if pride were a moment of awareness, and celebration of your current achievements? What if you could take stock of that moment, applaud your own story and be aware of the next steps that you need to take to improve.

The key to life is that it needs to be balanced, however if we’re fighting these subliminal rhetorics then it will take more effort to succeed in that balance.

Applaud your story. Just do it with awareness.