Pull the thread.
Open to collaborations, commissions and conversations.
I post a piece I spent weeks on. Then I watch a number. Ten likes. Someone else posts something that looks half-finished and gets five hundred. Nothing about my work changed in that minute. Only a number on a screen changed. And somehow it had the power to change how I felt about myself. If you make anything and put it into the world, you know this feeling. Here's what I've learned about getting out of it.
Without noticing, you start organizing your life around one question: What do other people think of me? You watch how they look at you. Whether they reply. Whether they invite you. Whether they share your work. Most of the time, nobody actually said anything bad. The whole trial is happening inside your own head. But it still changes how you act. You speak more carefully. You compare more. You start shaping yourself into the version you think will be accepted. And you forget to ask the question that matters more: What kind of person, and what kind of artist, do I actually want to be?
Ten likes is not a review of your work. Five hundred likes is not a review of theirs. Timing, algorithms, who was online, who was in a bad mood. A hundred things move that number, and almost none of them are you. Yet we hand that number the right to tell us who we are. The work is the same work before and after you look at the screen.
Fifteen years in advertising taught me this the hard way. Every idea I made was judged by a client, a boss, a room full of people. Then I started posting my own art, and realized the room had just become the whole internet. Somewhere in between, I had to accept a simple truth: No matter how good you are, some people will not like you. That's not a failure. That's arithmetic. If your happiness depends on being liked, it depends on something that doesn't belong to you. You can be kind, and still be disliked. You can work hard, and still be criticized. You can make your best piece, and still not be anyone's favorite. The more you need their approval, the less of your life is yours.
This idea is uncomfortable, because it hands the pen back to you. What happened to you matters. It shapes you. But you are not only a product of it. You also decide what it means. A rejected submission can be proof that you're not good enough. Or it can be just a thing that happened on a Tuesday. Same event. Two meanings. Two completely different lives.
This one is hard to hear. Sometimes the anxiety isn't stopping us. It's serving us. If I never submit the piece, nobody can reject it. If I never post the risky work, nobody can tell me it's bad. If I never show up, I never find out I wasn't enough. The fear feels like a wall. Sometimes it's a door we've decided not to open. Ask yourself honestly: what is this fear protecting me from?
I supported you, so you should support me. I shared your work, so you should share mine. I showed up for you, so where were you? That's where resentment begins. When kindness has a hidden invoice, it was never kindness. It was a transaction. Relationships get exhausting the moment you start keeping score. Give because you want to give. Then let it go.
Someone your age gets the big collector. Someone gets the gallery show. Someone's piece goes everywhere. If your worth depends on being ahead, their success feels like your failure. It isn't. Their rise doesn't make your work smaller. Their followers don't make your voice quieter. Life isn't a race with one winner. Most of us are climbing different hills.
So what replaces the need for approval? The answer I keep coming back to: contribution. Not fame. Not a million followers. Just the honest sense that your existence is useful to someone. Teaching someone what you know. Making one person feel understood by a painting. Doing your work honestly. When you genuinely feel useful, you stop needing a stranger to tell you that you're valuable. You already know.
I'll be happy when the piece sells. I'll be happy when people finally see what I'm doing. I'll be happy when I'm respected. You can spend your whole life in that waiting room. Keep the ambition. Keep working. Keep wanting more. But find the meaning in the making itself. Life isn't waiting at the finish line. It's happening at the easel.
Next time you catch yourself asking “Do they like me?” ask: “Do I like who I'm becoming?” Next time you compare, ask: “Am I unhappy with my life, or only with how theirs looks?” Next time fear of judgment stops you, ask: “If I knew some people would dislike me anyway, what would I choose?”
I don't think anyone solves this once and for all. I still care too much some days. I still compare. I still refresh. Maybe the goal isn't to stop caring. Maybe it's to notice when you've handed someone else's opinion too much power, and take it back. Being willing to be disliked doesn't mean caring less about people. It means caring about people without being controlled by them. That's where the real work starts. And the real freedom. What would you make this week if you knew some people would dislike it anyway?
YEKTA.
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overthink(paint)ing
Open to collaborations, commissions and conversations.