Clap For Yourself!

I stayed up till 4 am preparing for a presentation, which was scheduled to happen that morning. I was so satisfied that I am to rock the stage and turn heads once I got hold of the microphone. When the former presenter left the floor, I walked to the front with my head held high in my high gut pants not allowing my feet to touch the floor with pride of spitting fire for both class usage and life after class😂😂😂.
It was a nerve-racking and knee-shaking moment when I got hold of the microphone. I started my presentation ranting the words I memorized even the 5 minutes on my plate were not enough for me.

When my 5 minutes elapsed, I had not wrapped up assuring the audience with my vast researched knowledge about the topic.
After ten good minutes, I dropped the microphone, as soon as I walked down the stage, the Professor reminded us of how he was to consider time management while grading.

When that reminder settled in, I chose to dine with the personal blame game. I expected to hear positive remarks from friends informing me how my presentation was so life-changing even if it was so long😂😂😂.

To my surprise, most of my friends reminded me of how I spent more time than the assigned time. I got a few approvals, but i needed more to fill my golden box of victory, having spent plenty of time bracing up for the moment.

As the day went by, I pondered about the self-disappointment thoughts that were bombarding my mind, and the few approvals received added salt to the wound.
I didn’t acknowledge the fact that none of my friends was with me the whole time I injected in my effort. But guess what, I was so present from the moment I started developing the assignment until when I dropped the microphone. I was the right person to clap and thank myself for the effort put in, and even if things didn’t go as I planned, I tried, and lessons were picked.

Many times we go through life looking for someone to validate us, and if people don’t, it hurts us.
We need to stop feeling entitled to other people’s validation of us; people don’t owe us applause for all the good things we do only us know how hard we are working at something and the amount of time and energy we put in.

We shouldn’t expect people who have no idea how much we have put in to clap for us.

Let us clap for ourselves.