Look not for great approval from the world. It cannot give it to you. And, if it does, it is little enough. Even when it is grand, it is little. A bouquet the world sends disappoints. Having it, you see it is only approval, and you know that approval, by its nature short-lived, comes and goes in the same breath. Soon enough, the world forgets and you are left holding nothing. The world's approval isn't something to live for. All the plaudits of the world, no matter how honest and deserved, pall next to the joy of listening to you own heart and following it for its own sake, for your heart is your stake in life. Anything else is less.

What do you need the world's approval for? The play is the thing, not the applause. Certainly, enjoy applause but don't imagine it's your mainspring.

Exterior is exterior. Your heart needs to hear its own calling. Deep in the crevices of your heart, I call you to you. I call you to your happiness.

Your happiness lies within your being, and the expression of your being. Let your life itself ease your heart. Your actions are your own applause. Even what you call an unsung hero sings. What an audience notices is well and good, but the singing of one's own song is marvelous.

You are a renewer of hearts. You are a perpetrator of joy. When you are busy handing out joy, you do not need to listen to hear it echoed. The joy itself that you extend fills your heart with unboundedness.

Share your talents. They are of no use to you unless shared. Sing to your heart's content. Take joy in your singing.

The world's awards are something added on to the tail end of something. If you are a great scientist, the pleasure of the world does not keep you going. Your own inner joy of discovery keeps you going. Your own heart gives you momentum. The heart knows that exterior reward is paltry next to the joy of seeking and seeking and discovering every step of the way.

Outer reward comes when the concert is over. And soon enough everyone leaves the hall. They may still be filled and stirred with the music you played, but they leave. And you, leaning against the stage curtain, still hear the music you played reverberating within the hall and within your bloodstream, and this is yours, and you take this with you when you leave the concert hall.

Gifts you receive are very nice, but the giving of your own gift is greater. Giving on the level of the material is not always joyful, but giving from your inner core is always joyful.

Giving from your inner heart waits for nothing. It is its own prompter. It becomes automatic for you to lift up one who is falling. You wrap the joy that is in your heart around the world. You are your own applause, only you have already moved ahead and do not look back to hear it.

In your lifetime, by your joy, you have already pulled hordes with you. They are still following. The true pied piper is joy. Your heart is your pied piper. You play your own fife. That is all there is to do. And all hear it, whether knowingly or not.

It is your awareness that matters to the world. The world's aware does not matter. You can take it or leave it, for you are an ambassador of joy. You are not a collector of it. Even so, joy does adhere to you. That which falls from you falls around you, and you are surrounded with it.

Outer applause is distant. Joy is immediate. Choose.