October 22
What your own hands bring about is yours and no one else's. Do not trouble yourself over the favour of the crowd, nor over the word that is spoken of you — they are wind. Hold on to what you yourself have made.
The Edda — Hávamál (freely rendered)
Listening mode
What your own hands bring about is yours and no one else's. Do not trouble yourself over the favour of the crowd, nor over the word that is spoken of you — they are wind. Hold on to what you yourself have made.
A decision you made alone belongs to you in a peculiar way. You called something off or started something, and your reasons were not entirely out in the open. Others comment on it. Some find you brave, others reckless, most have no opinion on it any more after a week.
Praise can be just as questionable as doubt. Whoever encourages you turns your decision into something that now has to prove itself. Whoever criticises it demands a justification you may not even be able to put into sentences. Either way, the decision slips a little out of your hands.
Keeping it with you doesn't mean it was right; it means, rather, that you recognise its consequences as yours: the good ones as well as the irritating ones, without setting them off against other people's judgements. Who knows whether you would make it the same way again in a year. By then hardly anyone is talking about it.
