“Imagine there is a puddle. When it rains, the puddle is filled
with water. When it doesn’t, the puddle dries up. Now compare that to
the ocean. The ocean is so deep, it doesn’t matter if it rains above or
it is dry weather. Your inner depth should be as much as the ocean, so
you are not fazed by the external praise or criticism. For that, you
must truly do work that is meaningful to you, have love in your heart
for others and help people. And when you achieve inner depth, the
external world’s rewards won’t matter to you as much.”

Taken from Chetan Bhagat’s blog entry, The Ocean:

A parting word – I want to end
by sharing a small incident. The night before the release of 2 States, I
was super tense. I went to the ISKCON temple in Chowpatty and met His
Holiness Radhanath Swami, an American gentleman who moved to India
several decades ago and devoted his life to serve God. I told him I
couldn’t sleep because of the anxiety over the fact that there will be
a million judgments on my work, both positive and negative, in the
coming days. He told me this:

“Imagine there is a puddle. When it rains, the puddle is filled
with water. When it doesn’t, the puddle dries up. Now compare that to
the ocean. The ocean is so deep, it doesn’t matter if it rains above or
it is dry weather. Your inner depth should be as much as the ocean, so
you are not fazed by the external praise or criticism. For that, you
must truly do work that is meaningful to you, have love in your heart
for others and help people. And when you achieve inner depth, the
external world’s rewards won’t matter to you as much.”

I don’t think I am as deep as the ocean yet. But I am trying.
Meanwhile, I just felt I will share this with you, so you may apply it
in some aspects of your life. Whatever happens outside, it doesn’t
matter as much if there is a calm stillness in you.

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(may all beings in this world be happy)

Love and Blessings,
Me

Thank you, Chetan, for sharing this.

Read the whole post here.