LOOK AT ME!!!

LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME!!! Yep, when I say that I feel like Homer Simpson from possibly my all-time favourite episode of The Simpsons (The Bigger Brother one, if you were wondering, absolute CLASSIC!), but it also sums up, I think, the world today. Everyone is OBSESSED with being seen, noticed, acknowledged.

This isn't anything new, really. We've always wanted to be seen, but Social Media has accelerated things to a point where it's like a billy kart racer going out of control down a hill and smashing and bursting into flames and giving the kid a broken arm ... which may also have happened in The Simpsons.
We just need more and more and more, and it's never enough, more, more, MORE!
At the start, 20 likes is enough. It's awesome. We're happy. It satisfies us. But, once we've had 20 likes on things for a while, or once we see someone else getting 30 likes, or once something we do only gets 10 likes, we want more. What was once enough, or even sometimes what was overwhelmingly too much, is suddenly routine, boring, insufficient.
So we crave more.
We up the ante.
We ask for more, either by flat out saying it, or by our mood, or by trying harder to be liked, noticed, acknowledged. And sometimes it works, and we get to 30 likes, and we're satisfied ... for a while.
Now, don't get me wrong, I totally believe we have to aim high, higher than ever before. I think that if you aren't trying to grow and improve then you may as well just be sitting around watching The Simpsons. It's just that when you base your entire self-worth on how many likes you get, on what other people think of you, it's a very shallow base and a very slippery slope. 
See, the thing is, what other people think of you is irrelevant. You could do something, say put a post up on Instagram, and 50 people love it, 50 people hate it, 50 people couldn't care less about it, and 50 people don't see it because they're watching The Simpsons. So which of those people are right? Of course, we believe the ones who love it are right, and the others are fools who don't know what they're talking about, or they're just being mean, or they mustn't like you if they didn't even react to your post.
But what if you put something else up, and this time the people who loved the first thing hate this one? And the ones who hated the first thing love this one? And suddenly, the ones who loved the first thing wonder if they were right, going by this second one, and so now they don't even like the first thing as much any more. Suddenly the mean fools from before are the smart ones, and we crave more of their attention.
A ninja works hard to improve and grow for the sake of improving and growing. Their pride and satisfaction comes from their skills rising to an almost inhuman level, and from the knowledge they have given everything they can to doing a job as well as they can. They don't base their self-worth on what others think, because opinions can change in the blink of an eye. They simply do everything to the best of their ability and if people like it, well, that's awesome, and if they don't, well, that's life, right?
People love a song and after a while it becomes annoying. The song hasn't changed, the person has. So get out there, do the very best you can, be true to yourself and who you want to be, and let the rest take care of itself. 
That's what ninjas do, and ninjas are what? Yeah they are, they're awesome!