Many people say that they write only for themselves, but despite trying, I’ve always been the opposite. I write not just for myself but for others. (When I write just for myself, it’s usually in my journal.) I don’t always have a specific person or purpose in mind, but I try to create good stuff because I expect that my words will be read by someone.
In the beginning, this “someone” was my family. I was barely 15, and every poem, play or short story I’d written until then I proudly shared with my mother, who’d been the one to recommend I pursue writing as a career. Some of my stuff had won school competitions or been printed in the school magazine. I was proud, so was my mother, and I liked making her happy.
After I started practicing regularly and learned more about the craft of writing, I realized that we don’t come up with something good every day. So I shared with my family only the stuff I felt was good.
Soon I was writing every day, blogging a lot, and eventually, working as a freelancer. I was sharing my work more than ever, not just with my family but also with my friends.
But hardly anyone was reading my writing. Once in a while, a friend would reply with their thoughts on WhatsApp. Sometimes, my mother would tell me she liked what I wrote. As time passed, these comments became rare. I started pushing a little, telling others that I’d shared a link to my writing, or asking my family if they’d read that story or article I’d sent them yet. The infrequency of their response was discouraging and eventually, I started resenting them for not reading my writing.
The label “writer” was the most important marker of my identity. But identifying myself so strongly with it caused me much suffering. Part of my happiness as a writer depended not on what I wrote, the medium I used (I have a soft spot for pen and paper), or whether I was proud of what I’d made but whether my family—the people I love the most in the world—read what I wrote.
They supported me, encouraged me—especially the times when an inability to write due to a lack of time made me cranky. They appreciated every update I gave them about an article published or praised by readers in the comments. They did not disturb me when they knew I was writing.
And yet, all of this was not enough for me. I wanted them to read my work, understand it, to praise it, the way they would the books they read in other languages or the way they appreciated their favorite singers and cricketers.
But the reality is that my family hasn’t read almost everything I’ve ever written—and it’s not their fault. They’ve been busy handling their responsibilities. Plus, I write in English—a language that, while they can read, is not something they grew up with nor use every day, unlike me.
For a long time, this behavior pained me. Writing gave me joy but also created expectations and when those expectations weren’t met, I was inevitably disappointed.
Everyone likes validation for the things they are proud of doing. But we also need to detach ourselves a little from those things. As Dr Ali Mattu, a clinical psychologist, once said in an interview, it’s helpful “to keep our identities small.” He wasn’t implying that the different identities we hold shouldn’t matter, but rather, that we shouldn’t get so attached to them that they prevent us from connecting with others. The anger of those identities being threatened in any small way shouldn’t overpower us.
I was a writer because I wrote and not because others validated that identity by reading, publishing, or praising my writing.
When I stopped expecting my family to read my work, things improved. I had one less thing to be angry about. Instead, I learned to be grateful for the time and space they had and continue to give me, often without my asking, which enabled all that I’ve been able to achieve as a writer.
The problem with expectations is that we form, just like our stories, a narrative about how they should play out. And we hardly ever share this script with others—even when we do, it’s not their story, so why should they follow it?
The people who support us don’t necessarily have to be the ones who recognize the worth or the quality of our work. For that, we need an Ideal Reader(s), or a community of other writers or editors.
And even if we don’t have those, the joy we derive from writing or its importance to us doesn’t diminish if other people don’t grasp these effects. If we depend on others for something so fundamental to our lives, something that’s intrinsic, then we risk creating disappointments for ourselves. The moment we detach our identity, our skills from validation, we realize that the contentment of a story well-told or a sentence well-written is quite easy to find. We just have to look inwards, instead of outwards, for it.
Bio: Ratika Deshpande is a writer from India. Her work has appeared in Authors Publish, Reactor Magazine, the Brevity Blog, and other platforms.
