Writing this as a reminder for myself.
Doing the ‘right thing’ is almost never celebrated with approval and cheers.
It helps to remember that this is a timeless fact. Below is a 2,000 year old text that describes it well.
When faced with a difficult decision, it is usually not the lack of conviction that make you clench and slow down on taking the action, but rather the subconscious thoughts of the consequences.
We are social animals. Inside of every one of us is a little desire to be a people-pleaser. When we make tough decisions that we believe in but others may not understand, we may get ‘punished’ with judgement, criticism, or resistance.
This text from Seneca’s letter #29 helps me remember that popular approval shall not be craved, and tough decisions will almost always not be applauded.
“I have never wished to cater to the crowd; for what I know, they do not approve, and what they approve, I do not know.” “Who said this?” you ask, as if you were ignorant whom I am pressing into service; it is Epicurus. But this same watchword rings in your ears from every sect, – Peripatetic, Academic, Stoic, Cynic. For who that is pleased by virtue can please the crowd? It takes trickery to win popular approval; and you must needs make yourself like unto them; they will withhold their approval if they do not recognize you as one of themselves. However, what you think of yourself is much more to the point than what others think of you. The favour of ignoble men can be won only by ignoble means. What benefit, then, will that vaunted philosophy confer, whose praises we sing, and which, we are told, is to be preferred to every art and every possession? Assuredly, it will make you prefer to please yourself rather than the populace, it will make you weigh, and not merely count, men’s judgments, it will make you live without fear of gods or men, it will make you either overcome evils or end them. Otherwise, if I see you applauded by popular acclamation, if your entrance upon the scene is greeted by a roar of cheering and clapping, – marks of distinction meet only for actors, – if the whole state, even the women and children, sing your praises, how can I help pitying you? For I know what pathway leads to such popularity.
Seneca