Reputation and Approval
This week you sit with one of the most persistent pressures in any life: the hunger for approval and the fear of what others think. The seven passages move you from a blunt diagnosis of the problem, through harder questions about contempt, distinction, and motivation, to a final challenge about whether your inner life and your outer reputation are actually the same thing. Each day asks something specific of you, and by Saturday you will have a clearer picture of where you genuinely stand.
Passage
Do you wish to do good or to be praised? you ask. Immediately you get the answer, "What do I care for praise from the mob?" And that is an excellent answer. Neither does the musician, in so far as he is a musician, nor the geometrician.
— Epictetus, Discourses 3.23.7
Reflection
Epictetus sharpens the point from yesterday by moving from reaction to motivation. The musician doesn't care about the mob's praise in so far as she is a musician. That phrase does a lot of work. It doesn't say musicians never enjoy applause. It says that when she is operating as a musician, the craft itself is the standard, and the mob's judgment is simply not the relevant measure. The question Epictetus poses, 'do you wish to do good or to be praised,' is not rhetorical. It is diagnostic. Your answer, in any given moment, tells you which role you are actually playing.
Go deeper
Pick one thing you do that you consider genuinely good work; in your most honest assessment, what percentage of your motivation in that work comes from the craft or the good itself, and what percentage comes from how it will be received?
Practice
The Musician's Standard
Choose one activity you'll do today, something with a real output, a conversation, a piece of work, a decision. Before you begin, write down the standard by which the thing itself would be done well, independent of how anyone will respond to it. After you finish, spend 3 minutes noting whether you held to that standard or found yourself drifting toward performing for an imagined audience.