Nobody wants to be criticized. It doesn’t feel good when people judge what you’ve done. We want the right people to like us, we want all people to like us. We want to be accepted, appreciated, celebrated. So we try to be like other people, like the people that everyone likes.

Imagine if he had tried instead to conform to their expectations, to fit more clearly in the box they wanted him to be. Imagine if he’d tried to win the mob’s favor or the respect of future generations by conquest or dazzling deed. Imagine if he had written Meditations for an audience instead of from a far more personal and vulnerable place.

It doesn’t matter what you do, the criticism is always going to be there. So you might as well do what you think ought to be done. You might as well do what seems meaningful and important and fulfilling and right to you. People are going to say what they’re going to say, haters will find a way to hate. In the meantime, just be true to yourself, be true to the mission you have, fight for the respect (and praise) of yourself, not the mob, not the future.

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