Your work isn't getting the recognition you hoped

This disappointment is one of the quieter griefs of a creative life, and I want to help you hold it without letting it poison your making. Recognition is largely outside your control; the making is not — whether work finds an audience depends on timing, luck, fashion, and the crowded attention of the world, so fine work often goes unrecognized in its time while lesser work finds acclaim, and the lack of recognition is not a fair verdict on your work's worth; anchor in what you control, the making, not in what you do not. Do not let the lack of recognition make you abandon the work — the value of your making does not depend on acclaim, and to stop because the world has not yet noticed is to let an unreliable verdict end something good in itself, as much fine work was made by those who persisted unrecognized. And find the rewards that do not depend on being recognized — the satisfaction of the making, the growth of your skill, the genuine connections the work does make, which sustain a creative life through the long stretches without acclaim. What recognition were you hoping for?