Being Appreciated

The distinction between being appreciated and having status can be smudgy. We can nonetheless imagine low-status people being appreciated by coworkers or neighbors, and high status people who are not appreciated.Yet in general, the two things share a lot of space.

I am retired, and talk to retired people. I know some who have been retired a decade or more but quickly gravitate to telling you how unappreciated they were "by the school," or "in corporate America," or by managers who couldn't tell good workers from bad. The incentives - the promotions and bonuses - encouraged mediocre work instead of great. They are still bitter, and overgeneralise about all of society because of it. I can sense that these beliefs are never going to change now.  There is no pressing need anymore.  They can sink in as deeply as they like.

I did not think myself lucky when I was in jobs where everyone got paid the same, good or bad, or on account of largely irrelevant factors like longevity, degrees earned decades ago with little improvement since, or metrics designed to measure competence in situations unlike the ones they were in. Yet now I see that I was lucky in more important ways.  At least, I see it and partly apprehend it.  When the external was diminished, I had to ask myself "Why am I doing this? What is my motivation to do this well instead of poorly?" Those are more important questions, that those who receive their reward in this world may not get around to answering.

Martin Luther when discouraged would remind himself "I have been baptised, and that is enough." I got that low a few times as well, and now see that this became part of who I am. I do this because that is who I am. Lord make me better.  

Few people are appreciated as much as they deserve, and all of us are eventually forgotten, except a few by accident, like Ötzi. The day comes when we turn toward Aslan or away.