8. You Will Never Be Appreciated

If you are a free individual, what others say about you or to you, or what anyone else thinks about you or how anyone else judges you does not matter because all that matters to you is reality and the truth that describes it. No one else can really know who and what you are, with the possible exception of one who is closest to you. It is only what you know you are that matters.

Free Individual’s Are Never Understood

The free individual is, no matter how humble or how sophisticated the work he has chosen to do, a creator. Whether stocking shelves or designing software or inventing a new machine, because the free individual thinks for himself and consciously and intentionally chooses what he does and always does the best he possibly can, he is a creator. He does nothing because it is what someone else does or because it is what someone else determines, but what he chooses to do in the way he, in his best understanding, knows is the right way he can do it.

If you are a true creator, you will be neither understood or appreciated. In fact, you will mostly be resented.

In, “Hated—The Individualist In a Collectivist World,” I explained that it is your virtues that will be despised.

This will bewilder you too. Of all the people in this world, you are the only one who is not a threat to anyone, because you seek nothing from other men but what they are willing to give, and have no desire to interfere in anyone else’s life. Why would anyone be afraid of you, why would anyone hate you? You, who seek nothing from others except to be left alone, who have nothing but good will toward them, who seek nothing but what you have earned and deserve and nothing at all from others except what you and they can both agree is to your mutual benefit, and are the least dangerous and harmless of men.

You Don’t Need Anyone Else’s Approval

The only approval you need in this world is the approval of reality and your own best reason and judgment. So long as you are honest with yourself, and know you are, in your every thought, choice, and action, doing what you know is right and being the best you can be in all things, no one else’s views matter at all.

What will matter is that those who are aware of the value of whatever product or service you create and produce are willing pay for it is the proof of your true value, no matter how much they despise you.

What to remember: It’s What Other’s Pay You Not What They Think Of You, That Matters.

—(11/16/2020)