The Weight of a Compliment
One way to give someone an ego boost is to compliment them.
If someone say that I suck, I honestly wouldn’t be moved, hurt, or worse, stop doing what they say I suck at. And, because of that, I think it’s only fair for me to not to think that “I’ve arrived” when someone appreciates my art.
If my art inspires, motivates, or makes you think, then I’m thrilled that my art made a difference. I really am, but that shouldn’t be an excuse for my ego to get bigger.
Some people like it when a
compliment is paid to them; they’ve actually become accustomed to being rewarded with a compliment whenever they do something.
The problem with that is that one now measures the value of their art by the number of compliments they get.
Joe writes a poem, and, he gets a compliment from Joel.
Joe writes another poem, but Joel compliments him, not.
Does this mean the second poem sucks?
No. It might actually be better than the first, and Joel just thinks otherwise. Or better still, Joel might not have read the second poem as yet.
Anyways, I was thinking of the weight that compliments carry while in the shower.
And I asked myself these questions:
How fast is “Wow, that was fast!” when that compliment is paid to a skinny runner by an overweight person?
How great is “That’s a great logo!” when that compliment is paid by a design student to a designer with three decades of experience?
(Er, I was tempted to ask “How beautiful is beautiful. ..” but then I remembered that beauty isn’t really earned, all that beautiful people have to do is take a bath at least once a day.)
If you live for compliments, at least, rather get one compliment on your writing from William Shakespeare, rather than, a billion compliments from a billion second-rate writers.
(A compliment is only as good as the greatness, or mediocrity, of the person paying it on the complimented.)
[
Buy my Book •
Subscribe via Email •
Subscribe via RSS •
Update via Twitter •
Read all writings ]
— July 3, 2010.