Fame

Do you want to be famous?

If yes, why do you want to be famous? If no, why?

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In these past few years of social media’s exponential growth, I have observed that somehow, many (if not the majority of) people seems perceiving fame with success, in both material and personal brand. As if being famous equals with money and happiness, we tirelessly competing to put ourselves at the front of updated life’s milestones, exposing our privacy in different social media platforms for strangers (because we don’t bother to set the private mode), and engage in as many other platforms to let the world knows at least about who we are, what we do, and how we do/think about something.

We expose our personal relationship(s) with our spouse, children, family, and everyone around. We reveal our house to public, unconsciously alter the purpose of a ‘home’ into personal business; now everyone have the 'access' to our private space. And those are for what? Money and exposure?

The questions that follow, is it truly worthy? have we understood the underlying (long-term) sacrifices for those praises and materials we gain?

However, I don’t have the authority to judge whether it is wrong or not. Everyone has their reasons and needs of their desire to be famous. I am just simply curious about the essence of being famous. What would happen if we change the framework(s) behind “being famous”?

Ask me six to seven years ago when I was just graduated from university and starting out my own venture. At that time, any exposure was precious because I needed customers and recognition that I was successful enough. The first reason was quite make sense, but the second reason of me needed a recognition from my inner and outer circle? It rooted from my inability to love and accept myself. Because why should I need people’s recognition, if I already embraced and be comfortable with myself? Therefore, during the two years of my small venture journey, rather than focusing on the product I was building, I prioritized my personal branding to please my thirst of recognition and to impress the people I thought I like at that time.

Only after I stripped off every “identity” I once had and be more honest with my value in these past few years, I finally understand that I was not and am not ready to be famous in any term yet. It is also not what I have been looking for.

And why is that?

Because in my understanding, fame, or, the real fame, is not a goal, but a byproduct of a consistent and deliberate effort to achieve mastery. If we observe world’s successful figures like Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Julia Child, Meryl Streep, and others long lasting famous people, they started out not by boasting their identity and achievements to public. On the contrary, the case of Elizabeth Holmes and Macaulay Culkin has more or less proven that premature exposure to fame is more likely lead us to chaos.

But the world is different now, we have to ‘advertise’ ourselves otherwise we will miss out. If there was a twitter or instagram when Steve Jobs was young, wouldn’t he do the same?

Well, first, I’m not sure because he has passed away. But every time I read about famous people whose life impacted and added value to many people, I learned about focus and persistence. Their fame has always been the aftereffect of their hard work, not the other way around.

Then I ask myself;

Call me an over thinker, but I am just trying to be realistic. What public wants from our life may not (or even never) always align with what we want or need. In exchange for public’s expectation, there must be something that we sacrifice, even though we will gain something afterwards. Therefore, I think it is very important to always be conscious about the tradeoffs.

And yet people have different priorities and starting foundations. And actually, we can choose our ‘scale of fame’ within our own needs and wants. I also think that the essence of fame itself is also not a number, but the depth of value we can give to other people, in which numbers are not the priority.

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So, what do I want to highlight from this post?

You'd probably have known or heard, but please let me state it again ;)

As we all know, everything in life has its ‘price’.

Don't you think?

Warmly,

-T

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