SELF HELP FOR CREATIVE PERSONS – TONIC FOR THE UNAPPRECIATED – HOW TO DIGEST FAILURE

HOW TO DIGEST FAILURE
Self Help Tips for Creative Persons
By
VIKRAM KARVE

Do you feel frustrated because no one appreciates your creative work?

Even at your workplace, do you feel unappreciated because your boss or colleagues do not value your work or they do not give you due recognition?
Remember, self consolation is the best self help.

Here is some tonic for the unappreciated.

TONIC FOR THE UNAPPRECIATED By VIKRAM KARVE

All persons, at some point in their lives, experience frustration blues. 

This is more so if you are engaged in some creative activity. 

There are many occasions when people just do not appreciate your work. 

Even if people criticize you and do not appreciate your creative efforts you must not get disheartened and stop doing what you want to do. 

The best way is to console yourself and bash on regardless and continue to do whatever you are doing with renewed vigour and zeal.

Let me tell you one way to drive away frustration blues.

When I was in school our Literature Teacher would often yell at us:

“I Am Casting Pearls Before Swine”. 

I did not quite understand her anguish then, but now, I can fully empathize with her when I too sometimes feel the same way when my creative writing is not appreciated.

The idiom CAST PEARLS BEFORE SWINE means to offer something good to somebody who cannot appreciate the value of it. 

Yes, if you cast pearls before swine, you offer something of value to someone who does not appreciate it and does not understand its value (swine means pigs). 

Suppose you are an artist, a painter, and you show your painting to a person who knows nothing about art and is not interested in the fine things of life.

Or say you are a creative writer.

And you show your fiction or poetry to someone who is not interested in literature.

Well, in such cases: “You are casting your pearls before swine”.

Why are you trying to seek appreciation from persons who cannot appreciate your work because they have no knowledge of your art?

Now, I was wondering, how do you translate this phrase “I AM CASTING PEARLS BEFORE SWINE” into Hindi?

I suddenly remembered a blog post I had written a few months ago titled:

अन्धो के शहर में आइने बेच रहा हूँ  

I think this Hindi Phrase expresses the same sentiment as the English Idiom:

I AM CASTING PEARLS BEFORE SWINE

Let me tell you how I came across this Hindi idiom:

अन्धो के शहर में आइने बेच रहा हूँ  

Translated into English, this means:

I AM SELLING MIRRORS IN THE CITY OF THE BLIND

Now I will tell you how I came across this piece of wisdom.

A few years ago, one evening while surfing channels, I watched a program on Zee Classic Television Channel called “Classic Legends” hosted by Javed Akhtar.

The episode was based on the life of the famous poet and lyricist Majrooh Sultanpuri.

Javed Akhtar narrated an incident and a quote ( शेर ) by Majrooh Sultanpuri which I will never forget. 

Javed Akhtar met Majrooh Sultanpuri in the evening of his life, when Majrooh Sultanpuri had passed his peak of popularity and he was no longer as much in demand as a poet as before and new lyricists were ruling the roost in the film industry.

Javed Akhtar asked the famous poet Majrooh Sultanpuri how he was doing.

Majrooh Sultanpuri replied:

अन्धो के शहर में आइने बेच रहा हूँ 

which roughly translated means:

I AM SELLING MIRRORS IN THE CITY OF THE BLIND

This quote is still perambulating in my mind.

The more I delve on it I realize how profound these words are, especially for a creative writer whose work is not appreciated.

So whenever my novel manuscript is returned by a publisher with a rejection letter, or if people ignore my blog, whenever I feel unappreciated, I am going to console myself:

  अन्धो के शहर में आइने बेच रहा हूँ  

I AM SELLING MIRRORS IN THE CITY OF THE BLIND

And then I am going to redouble my efforts and bash on regardless.

Isn't this a nice philosophy for creative persons and artists to adopt rather than get frustrated when their work is not appreciated? 

Is this not a much better way to drive away your frustration blues than indulging self-pity and doing harmful things like drowning your sorrows in drink, isn't it? 

So whenever you feel frustrated that your efforts are not being appreciated, ask yourself:

“Are you casting your pearls before swine?” 

Then continue your efforts with redoubled vigour and enthusiasm. 

Do not worry whether others appreciate your work or not. 

Do not crave for external appreciation. 

It is best to work for your own satisfaction.

Adopt this philosophy of life whenever someone does not appreciate you or your work, and say to yourself:

अन्धो के शहर में आइने बेच रहा हूँ 

I AM SELLING MIRRORS IN THE CITY OF THE BLIND

Just like there is no point in “casting pearls before swine” – what is the use of “selling mirrors in the city of the blind” ?

Think about it.

Have a Happy and Creative Weekend

VIKRAM KARVE

Copyright © Vikram Karve 
1. If you share this post, please give due credit to the author Vikram Karve
2. Please DO NOT PLAGIARIZE. Please DO NOT Cut/Copy/Paste this post
© vikram karve., all rights reserved.

Disclaimer:

All Stories in this Blog are a work of fiction. Events, Places, Settings and Incidents narrated in the story are a figment of my imagination. The characters do not exist and are purely imaginary. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Copyright Notice:

No part of this Blog may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Blog Author Vikram Karve who holds the copyright.

Copyright © Vikram Karve (all rights reserved)

Updated and Revised Version of my Article First Posted by Vikram Karve on 25 Dec 2011 in my blog at 12/25/2011 10:34:00 PM at url: http://karvediat.blogspot.in/2011/12/i-am-selling-mirrors-in-city-of-blind.html

TUESDAY MORNING WISDOM - What is EDUCATION

MUSINGS on a Tuesday Morning  -  What is Education ?

We need two kinds of Education

1. The first type of education teaches us HOW TO MAKE A LIVING

and 

2. The second type of education teaches us HOW TO LIVE

The first type of education enables us to achieve STANDARD OF LIVING

The second kind of education equips us to enjoy QUALITY OF LIFE

Think about it.

Have you got both types of Education?

Do you know how to make a living as well as how to live?

Are you giving your children both kinds of education? 

Are you ensuring holistic development?

Have a good Tuesday.

Wish you both a decent Standard of Living as well as a good Quality of Life.

VIKRAM KARVE

Copyright © Vikram Karve 2013

Vikram Karve has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work. 

© vikram karve., all rights reserved.

Did you like reading this post? 
I am sure you will like all the 27 stories in my recently published book of short stories COCKTAIL
To order your COCKTAIL please click any of the links below:
http://www.flipkart.com/cocktail-vikram-karve-short-stories-book-8191091844?affid=nme
http://www.indiaplaza.in/cocktail-vikram-karve/books/9788191091847.htm
http://www.apkpublishers.com/books/short-stories/cocktail-by-vikram-karve.html
COCKTAIL ebook
If you prefer reading ebooks on Kindle or your ebook reader, please order Cocktail E-book by clicking the links below:
AMAZON
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005MGERZ6
SMASHWORDS
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/87925

Foodie Book:  Appetite for a Stroll
http://www.flipkart.com/appetite-stroll-vikram-karve/8190690094-gw23f9mr2o

About Vikram Karve

A creative person with a zest for life, Vikram Karve is a retired Naval Officer turned full time writer and blogger. Educated at IIT Delhi, IIT (BHU) Varanasi, The Lawrence School Lovedale and Bishops School Pune, Vikram has published two books: COCKTAIL a collection of fiction short stories about relationships (2011) and APPETITE FOR A STROLL a book of Foodie Adventures (2008) and is currently working on his novel and a book of vignettes and short fiction. An avid blogger, he has written a large number of fiction short stories, creative non-fiction articles on a variety of topics including food, travel, philosophy, academics, technology, management, health, pet parenting, teaching stories and self help in magazines and published a large number of professional research papers in journals and edited in-house journals and magazines for many years, before the advent of blogging. Vikram has taught at a University as a Professor for 15 years and now teaches as a visiting faculty and devotes most of his time to creative writing and blogging. Vikram Karve lives in Pune India with his family and muse - his pet dog Sherry with whom he takes long walks thinking creative thoughts.

Vikram Karve Academic and Creative Writing Journal: http://karvediat.blogspot.com
Professional Profile Vikram Karve: http://www.linkedin.com/in/karve
Vikram Karve Facebook Page:  https://www.facebook.com/vikramkarve
Vikram Karve Creative Writing Blog: http://vikramkarve.sulekha.com/blog/posts.htm
Email: vikramwamankarve@gmail.com

© vikram karve., all rights reserved.

 

HOW TO CHOOSE A CAREER YOU LOVE - A Value Based Approach

CAREER GUIDANCE

HOW TO SELECT YOUR CAREER

A VALUE BASED APPROACH

By

VIKRAM KARVE

One of the greatest misfortunes in life is to be good at something you don’t like. 

You may be proficient in mathematics, but you may hate mathematics.

You may be competent HR or PR Manager possessing excellent communication skills and busy interacting with people every minute of the day, but in your heart you may love a life of solitude and contemplation. 

In order to be able to select the right career, one has to reflect, analyse, know one’s inner self, and be able to clearly distinguish between what you are good at doing (proficiency, competence) and what you enjoy doing, love to do and what you want to do in life (interests, values). 

When I was in school, in the 1960s, there was no concept of career counselling or vocational guidance.

All the boys were herded into the Science Stream (unless one was very poor at mathematics) and all the girls were considered suitable for Humanities (unless she put her foot down and insisted on studying science).

Then, as a boy, if you were in science and did well, the options were Engineering or Medicine, and most of us continued being good at something we did not like. (The girls mostly studied arts while they waited to get married).

And much later in life we discovered what we truly liked and then, if we had time, we pursued what we really wanted to do (our true métier) as hobbies.  

Fortunately, nowadays things are different. 

Young persons have plenty of choice and opportunity to choose what they want to do.

If you are on the verge of choosing your career, the first thing to do is to develop a concept of the person you would like to be – introspect and try to discover your life orientation. 

LIFE ORIENTATION

If your want to enjoy your work take care to ensure that your choice of career is in alignment with your LIFE ORIENTATION.

Your life orientation comprises three factors: SKILLS, INTERESTS and VALUES.

If you choose a career that enables you achieve success facilitating optimal utilization of your best skills, doing the kinds of work that relate to your favourite interests and in consonance with your core values, you will derive total work-life balance and job satisfaction.  

In order to find out your orientation in life you have to know yourself.

Go to some quiet place, sit down comfortably, close your eyes, and reflect on the aspects below to discover your skills, intesrests and values. 

SKILLS

As a first step to determining your Orientation in Life focus on the various skills you might have.

Introspect and list your SOFT SKILLS and HARD SKILLS. 

Soft Skills: pertain to the intuitive, creative and emotional right side of the brain.

Hard Skills: emanate from the analytical and logical left side of the brain.

Are you a Soft Skills person or a Hard Skills person or a hybrid blend of both?

Which types of skills predominate?

Think of your best skills.

Prioritize them and make a list of all your skills in order of precedence.  

INTERESTS

Now list all your interests and put them in order of your preference, just as you did with skills.

How do you discover your interests?

Assume you have enough leisure and plenty of time and lots of resources – what would you do?

How you like to spend your leisure gives a clue to your interests.

Will the career you choose enable you to satisfy your interests at the workplace or will you have enough leisure and resources to pursue them on your own in your spare time.

VALUES 

Now, focus on discovering your values.

Values are core beliefs which guide and motivate attitudes and behaviour.

When you value something you want it (or want it to happen).  

Values are relatively permanent desires.

Values are our subjective reactions to the world around us.

Values are answers to the “why” question. 

You keep on asking yourself the “why” question until you reach a point where you no longer want something for the sake of something else. 

At this point you have arrived at a value.

Let’s take an example.

I was once teaching a Post Graduate Professional Programme at a premier university, a centre of excellence.

I asked a student, “Why are you doing this academic course?”  

“To gain qualifications,” he answered.  

“Why do you want to gain qualifications?”  

“To succeed in my career.”  

“Why do you want to succeed in your career?”  

“To reach the top.”  

“Why do you want to reach the top?”  

“To get power.”  

“Why do want do you want power?”  

“To control people,” he answered.  

“Why do you want to control people?”  

“I want to control people.”  

“Why?”  

“I like to control people.”  

“Why?”  

“Just for the sake of it – I like controlling people,” he said and repeated why questions elicited similar responses related to control.

Control for the sake of control – that’s when you discover your value.

I realized that control was one of his cardinal values and maybe he was a future megalomaniac in the making! 

The same line of questioning of persons undergoing higher education may reveal valueslike knowledge, money, status, standard of living, quality of life, ambition,achievement, growth, reputation, excellence, fame.

Your personal list of values may include values like honesty, integrity, loyalty, prestige, happiness, friendship, family life, achievement, independence, education, power, money, independence, freedom and so on.

Now prioritize your values in order of importance to discover your CORE VALUES - your most important cardinal values.

Remember, there cannot be any “partial” values; for example: you cannot be 50% honest (half-honest) – either you are honest or you are not honest!

Your values are possibly the most important thing to consider when you're choosing an occupation or workplace. 

That is because you can compromise your values but you cannot change your values.  

If you do not take your values into account when planning your career, there's a good chance you will dislike your work and therefore not enjoy it.

SELECTING A CAREER

Introspect over your skills, interests and values.

If you have conscientiously created and prioritized your lists, you have learned something about yourself and ascertained your orientation in life.  

Whilst considering and selecting a career you must thoroughly evaluate as to what degree the career-attributes are compatible with your orientation in life.  

Let’s take an example.

Suppose your priority SKILLS include hard skills like mathematical and analytical ability, and soft skills like leadership and communication skills. 

Your INTERESTS include travel, adventure, photography and good food. 

And your most important VALUES are family life, prestige and achievement.

Now let’s consider various career options.  

Consider a career as a deck officer in the merchant navy.

Your skills and interests seem to be ideally suited but there is mismatch, a conflict, between the demands of the career in the merchant navy and your most cherished core value – “Family Life”.

Perhaps, if your most important values were money, independence and prestige, the overall harmony and compatibility of your values, skills and interests with the career-attributes would have made merchant navy an ideal career option for you.

In practical life you may not be always able to avoid value versus career conflict in all cases but being aware of this fact will help you come to terms with realities and mitigate the conflict and also contemplate a career-shift in consonance with your value orientation whenever feasible.  

Your values are the most important and critical aspect of your career orientation.

If you want to enhance certain skills, you can work on it and acquire those skills.

Similarly, you can change your interests or develop new interests, devoting time and resources to those interests you would like to create, acquire or strengthen. 

Skills can be learned, interests can be developed, but values are intrinsic.

It is very difficult to change your core values.

You may compromise your values, but you cannot change them.

CAREER GUIDANCE

Before you choose your career, introspect and ascertain the compatibility, congruence andharmony between the career and your orientation in life (comprising your skills, interests and values).  

Don’t make a hasty decision or you may find yourself on the wrong road and then it may be too late to turn back.

Devoid of intrinsic motivation to purse a career which is not in harmony with one’s orientation in life, but caught up in the need to gain parental affection,materialistic rewards, extrinsic recognition, peer pressure and societal acceptance, young people often enter careers that may not offer them true inner happiness and fulfilment that evolves from harmonious work-life balance. 

Thus, though they may appear outwardly successful, inwardly they lament over the reality of inner dissonance owing to work-life imbalance.

Let your inner conscience be your guide and resist temptation and undue pressures from elders and peers.

Choosing a career which you love, doing a job you enjoy which is not in conflict with your values and lets you realize your full individuality and creative potential will enable you to achieve a sense of fulfillment. 

Do interact with career counselors, talk to your parents, elders, peers and take their advice, but remember to distinguish between the “hard” and the “soft” facets of career attributes.

Read some good books on career guidance.

My favorite is a book called What Color Is Your Parachute by Richard N. Bolles. It is updated and published every year. It is a fascinating read and will help you discover your true métier. 

And why not take a few career tests?

You can either visit a career guidance counsellor or psychologist who will administer relevant tests to you. Or try the online tests. My favorite one is The Princeton Review Career Quiz which is available online. 

It is a simple, fast, interesting and effective forced choice test which presents you with interesting career options.

I gave the test sometime ago, and the results say that my interest color is Blue, which means I am a creative, humanistic, thoughtful, quiet type, and my usual style is Yellow, which means I tend to be orderly, cautious, loyal, systematic, methodical, solitary, and organized and will thrive in a research-oriented, predictable, established, orderly environment.

As per the test results, my career choices include Writer, Librarian, Philosopher, Teacher, Professor, Researcher, College or School Administrator, Human Resources Manager, Guidance Counsellor, and, yes, I am supposed to be an ideal Career Counsellor.

Am I one of these? 

Well, I am not going to tell you.

I wish you all the best.

Have fun, introspect and learn more amd more about your own self.

Take your time, think, discuss, read, experiment, reflect, and discover your true métier in harmony with your interests and values and inner self.

Choose your career wisely. 

Remember, one of the greatest misfortunes in life is to be good at something you do not like. 

So while selecting your career you must reflect, analyse, and you must be able to clearly distinguish between

what you are good at doing (proficiency, competence)

as opposed to

what you enjoy doing (interests, values) - what you love to do and what you want to do in life. 

A career can be very satisfying if you have made the right choice.

Like the famous adage that goes: 

If you choose a job you love, you don’t have to work a single day in your life.

On the other hand, a wrong decision can leave you regretting and wishing that you had trodden a different path.

All the Best in discovering your true métier – I wish you a fulfilling career that suits you and work which you love.

VIKRAM KARVE
Copyright © Vikram Karve 2012
Vikram Karve has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
© vikram karve., all rights reserved.

Did you like this article?
I am sure you will like the stories in my recently published book COCKTAIL comprising twenty seven short stories about relationships. To order the book please click the links below:
http://www.flipkart.com/cocktail-vikram-karve-short-stories-book-8191091844?affid=nme
http://www.indiaplaza.in/cocktail-vikram-karve/books/9788191091847.htm
http://www.apkpublishers.com/books/short-stories/cocktail-by-vikram-karve.html

COCKTAIL ebook
If you prefer reading ebooks on Kindle or your ebook reader, please order Cocktail E-book by clicking the link below:
AMAZON
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005MGERZ6
SMASHWORDS
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/87925

About Vikram Karve

A creative person with a zest for life, Vikram Karve is a retired Naval Officer turned full time writer. Educated at IIT Delhi, ITBHU Varanasi, The Lawrence School Lovedale and Bishops School Pune, Vikram has published two books: COCKTAIL a collection of fiction short stories about relationships (2011) and APPETITE FOR A STROLL a book of Foodie Adventures (2008) and he is currently working on his novel. An avid blogger, he has written a number of fiction short stories and creative non-fiction articles in magazines and journals for many years before the advent of blogging. Vikram has taught at a University as a Professor for almost 15 years and now teaches as a visiting faculty and devotes most of his time to creative writing. Vikram lives in Pune India with his family and muse - his pet dog Sherry with whom he takes long walks thinking creative thoughts. 

Vikram Karve Academic and Creative Writing Journal: http://karvediat.blogspot.com
Professional Profile Vikram Karve: http://www.linkedin.com/in/karve
Vikram Karve Facebook Page:  https://www.facebook.com/vikramkarve
Vikram Karve Creative Writing Blog: http://vikramkarve.sulekha.com/blog/posts.htm
Email: vikramkarve@sify.com         
© vikram karve., all rights reserved.

© vikram karve., all rights reserved.