Narcissism Vs Admiration

When the debate of narcissism goes on around and the blame-game on social networks is always at heavy toll, I remembered the prologue of one of my favorite books "The Alchemist" and felt like sharing;

The alchemist picked up a book that someone in the caravan had brought. Leafing through the pages, he found a story about Narcissus.

The alchemist knew the legend of Narcissus, a youth who knelt daily beside a lake to contemplate his own beauty. He was so fascinated by himself that, one morning, he fell into the lake and drowned. At the spot where he fell, a flower was born, which was called the narcissus.

But this was not how the author of the book ended the story.

He said that when Narcissus died, the goddesses of the forest appeared and found the lake, which had been fresh water, transformed into a lake of salty tears.

"Why do you weep?" the goddesses asked.

"I weep for Narcissus," the lake replied.

"Ah, it is no surprise that you weep for Narcissus," they said, "for though we always pursued him in the forest, you alone could contemplate his beauty close at hand."

"But... was Narcissus beautiful?" the lake asked.

"Who better than you to know that?" the goddesses said in wonder.

"After all, it was by your banks that he knelt each day to contemplate himself!"

The lake was silent for some time. Finally, it said, "I weep for Narcissus, but I never noticed that Narcissus was beautiful. I weep because, each time he knelt beside my banks, I could see, in the depths of his eyes, my own beauty reflected."

"What a lovely story," the alchemist thought.

***************

Well, going through the story have had always given me the impression that aren't we all craving for some kind of admiration, do we say or not but we indeed like being admired /being praised. Being praised for who we are, how we are doing things and well to get more better. I would also like to move on with a ratifying video for my say.

Just wanna tell how much we crave for admiration and that's it. Well, "Who doesn't like being Praised?"

To add on, there are extremes of everything, sometimes those extremes get you to some good insights and sometimes they create troubles. But anyhow they exist.

Narcissism is also a case and there are cases anyhow, but being unable to praise others is yet another case. So when we can try so many of the things then why not try Praising, and Admire for the worthy deeds of others. Try it, you indeed will feel better and at Peace.. :-) 

Metta !!

Image: via Wikipedia !
Video @Youtube