Right, I’m going to stick my head out here. Yes, I’m only a new kid on the block but in my efforts to do the right thing and follow these ‘Awards’, and the appropriate etiquette so that I may fit into the community, I have inadvertently rocked everyone’s boat, including mine. Let me explain. The entire purpose of these awards are to give to a range of people an award for, what we individually feel, are there beautiful points. Whether that is their expressions in writing, art, photography, spirituality, suffering, big hearts, great works or just giving for the pleasure of sharing. And let me be the first to hold my hand up and say, ‘This community is loaded with some amazing people’, and individually we find people that we find an interest in, and follow them and really like the space they are giving from.
So…along comes an award for those very reasons…someone finds me great (ahem, just let me comb my hair back a bit and adjust my tie 🙂 ), and I really do appreciate their thinking I’m worthwhile in some way and feel good that I am given this. Honestly, I do. So I follow the rules and fix up a post, get a list of my lovely people that I follow and think they are very deserving of this, and send them a comment so that they know of just how I feel about them. Smiling the whole time as I decide to save time and put out a similar comment to all parties. Thinking cap goes on and I ask myself, how should I put this together. I know, how do I actually feel about all these differing people and their sites I go to and follow. And so I put together the following:
“Hi, I have found your site to be an amazing place and have appreciated it for what it has given me as an enjoyable, learning and heartfelt place. For that I would like to present you with the Versatile Bloggers Award. To accept this award please click on my link in this comment and go to the Awards post on the Home page. At the bottom of the post it will give you instructions on how to accept the award. I have checked to make sure you did not have instructions that you were no longer accepting awards but if I have missed this please accept my apologies. Otherwise thank you again for the sharing of your site, I follow it as I like and relate to the gift of your writing very much. Namaste“
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Reality check:
1. The Bold and Italic parts were my truth, the plain central part was where I began to feel my truth go gurgling down the drain like a ‘car salesman or politician’. (My apologies to any of those that are honest people). But MY blog (and who I am), is all about being my ‘truth’ and all this did was make me feel uncomfortable about what I was doing, even though I was giving it for very good reasons, it still felt that I was giving it falsely because the rules say I must get 10 or 15 people to give the award to (and being a new comer I only had 20 at that point), which again made me feel I was being forced to find enough to cover the rules instead of just giving because I actually did feel these people were deserving of an award. And I do feel that all the people I follow are special, I just haven’t had time to ‘get to know them’ to reinforce those feelings. I also suppose I felt uncomfortable about what I was then ‘lumbering’ onto them. I had just made a lot of friends and I was possibly now putting a dampener on that friendship.
2. This comment was received very politely by all involved who replied very courteously (Thank you everyone). Though, in the time I have been here, looking around and getting feedback from comments and replies around the community as a whole, there was this feeling of ‘oh poop’ when an award was received.
3. Upon researching ‘oh poop’, I came to realise that these awards are given, for all intents and purposes, with all the truthful intentions of awarding someone with something that has meaning and really does reflect what one person thinks of another. BUT, after doing one myself I now realise that they are also time consuming, done hesitatingly because we do not wish to ‘lumber’ it on good friends, and lastly because of the first two reasons they no longer have the appeal they once did because of that.
4. There is nothing wrong with the presentation in itself, as it is most happily accepted for why it was given, but it brings about the extremes of feeling happy, then frustration because of what it will then entail for the recipient. This is only engendering a feeling of distaste towards something that should be the exact opposite. A lot of people will find it ‘great’ and follow the instructions accordingly, but that can and does become a little testing to say the least after the 10th award (not referring to anyone in particular, but man, is she good at her computer now 🙂 And I did love & appreciate ALL the time and effort she had put into the award that she gave me, thank you Tammy!), and so, out of courtesy we grin and bear it because we feel we must because of how we feel about ‘our’ community.
5. Some of these awards have no doubt been created and brought about because of some incredibly amazing creation or works by someone or even in memory of someone that was highly thought of. Or even as a way for ‘beginners’ to put themselves out there for the community to see. But the whole idea of that is so it can be an award that WILL remind us of that circumstance or person for all the right reasons. Not for a feeling of ‘oh shoot, not another one’.
So at this point I’m wondering if the whole awards thing should be given a rethink or be redesigned in such a way that it does give it’s meaning back, and a reason to be looked at again with a pride and pleasure for what it can really mean to an individual and not another blip on your blog.
Let’s say a regular voting, once every three months (I’m only tossing numbers around here), at a site that is set up for just that purpose…academyblog.wordpress.com…(hopefully it’s not been taken), or some such that allows for anyone to nominate a blog that they feel is worthwhile. Multiple categories to cover the amazing talent that is in this beautiful community. Tally the numbers up and really present them with something that they will treasure forever. Just think of the after parties 🙂 Also I’m sure there is some incredible talent out there who could create other awards or something to be remembered (with their name and reference to their blog) for their efforts of course. Actually I feel a competition coming on to find the ‘best’ award designs for the different categories.
Ok, I’ve stuck my nose out there because I feel it is a truth that is being politely ignored. If I’m in the wrong then I give my full and total apologies to all concerned in the community. But in what I have felt and seen so far there are way too many feeling uncomfortable with the process and rather than leave it that way, I think it should be updated, and give it back its credence so that it will be given the respect and courtesy it deserves.
May your academy award be heartfelt, loved and show the truth of who you really are within.
Love and light,
Mark
P.S. The above is just a suggestion, maybe it is needed to start the site up, to allow suggestions to be put forward FROM the community so that what is created is actually what the community wants.
P.S.S. No, thank you, setting up an academy is not my forte, I just do truth 🙂
P.S.S.S. Yes, I suppose I could do what others do and politely say thank you for the award, and then not do the process because it has become uncomfortable. (And that isn’t what any of the people I gave the award to did, it just seemed to be a consensus among the many comments and replies that I have come across in the community).
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