Tag: praise

The Things I Love and the Things I Do Well

Sorry I haven’t written the past couple of days, but I was setting up for Missouri Hope, our big disaster training exercise. Then I was doing moulage for Missouri Hope, which means making up 185 volunteers in two-hour stretches (with two other moulage artists). Then I was recovering from Missouri Hope. It’s the most intense weekend of my year.

So, it’s Tuesday, and I have a spare few minutes to write my blog in-between grading and an online meeting that shouldn’t go too long. I have time to think. Today, I’m thinking of the things I love and the things I do well, which are not necessarily the same things.

I enjoy doing moulage, and I do it well. I know I do it well because I get a lot of compliments and attention for it. Doing moulage gives me a boost. I get high from the attention.

Trigger warning: Below is a simulation of a crushed hand:

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Back to writing:

I enjoy writing, too. I’d like to believe I do it well, but I get little feedback from publishing my writing. Few people have read my three Kringle novels, my fantasy romance novel, or my Vella serial. I’m not sure this has to do as much with my writing as the whole struggle to get the word out about my writing. I’m not good at putting myself out there because I feel insecure about my writing in a way I do not about my moulage. A vicious cycle, apparently — no praise means insecurity; insecurity means I don’t push myself forward; not pushing myself forward means no readers; no readers means no praise.

I need to find a way out of the vicious cycle, because I want to have the relationship I have with my moulage with my writing, something that I both enjoy and which feeds my need for recognition (which is a small thing, actually). I’m willing to entertain ideas …

Five Minutes

Growing up gifted

I hate the word “gifted”, but I don’t know what other word to use to convey the place I was when I was younger. I had some of the highest grades on standardized exams that had ever been seen in my school district. If I got a B in a class, it was because I marked questions wrong that were right, so as not to be caught daydreaming. I saw it as nothing special, and in fact all my brains did was make me a pariah.

And, of course, it also made me the teachers’ darling. I grew accustomed to the praise I got from them. In high school in particular, I started receiving honors and scholarships, and seeing my name in the paper was a secret thrill. I was a big fish in a small pond. Further, I didn’t have to do anything to get praise but be myself.

Coming down to earth

This continued through my undergraduate years — though I wasn’t winning scholarships by then, at least I was on the honor roll and the Bronze Tablet for my grades (it’s a University of Illinois thing — I was in the top 2% of my class.)

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Then I became a professor in a university with many people whose abilities equalled or excelled mine. There are no rewards for doing one’s job. But those of us who became addicted to praise, like myself, are left to wonder where our value is.

Five minutes of fame

I am growing to understand that I had my five minutes of fame in high school. It demanded little of me, just an accident of birth. There are so many others like me who were just as accidentally lucky — good looks, the right Instagram post, a darling cat. Hard work may help, but it is the lucky moment that launches someone into the limelight. I think of the actors in the science fiction genre who will never become well-known stars outside of those who watch science fiction, the people who work in jobs that we assume are unskilled, all the people who are unrewarded for their excellent work.

I’ve had that praise. It’s time for me to give up the limelight.