What Happens When You Stop Looking for Fame?

Try to consume yourself in the most selfless way!

Abdul Aziz Khan
3 min readNov 20, 2021
Photo by Dayvison de Oliveira Silva from Pexels

It looks quite obvious that human needs love to survive and appreciation for realisation. There is no scale to measure such aspects quantitatively. However, the need to acquire such gratification increases with moments. First few weeks at a workplace, people send you salutation. A year later after your promotion, you saw some people leaving their chairs to salute you. After a few more years, whenever you pass by a stranger, you get respect. Now you desire what? The recent level of reverence that you got yesterday. You subconsciously set a standard of admiration in your expectations.

One day, you lose your position. Would your heart accept that the same level of respect that you used to get is now directed towards a fellow man? It would be hard to accept because that’s how we all are conditioned. Even if you try to consciously control your anger and hate for that person who is now getting such honour that once you deserved, your emotional balance will get disturbed. You will either become too vulnerable or too insensitive regarding social securities.

What Happened Internally?

Think for a moment and understand what caused all that fuss in the first place. Before day one, you never knew that you were going to get such reverence from a group of new people. In the initial weeks, you became so overwhelmed by a warm welcome and smiley greetings that your real purpose began to get overshadowed by fame.

You were the right candidate without a second opinion. Let’s assume that all that respect had nothing wrong too. But if you observe that with time, you started looking for admiration instead of keeping your core focus on the actual responsibility. You were there as a responsible member and had your tasks executed nicely. Everything was smooth, but inside, a demon was getting fed. That demon is fame.

In any sphere of life, you won’t find any place where there is no competition. And when there is competition, every human wants the gold medal from the catalogue of materialistic rewards and fame from the temporal set of rewards. People indulge so much in the latter pursuit that their mind begins to deceive them. Apparently, they serve humanity, but their actual self is revealed when someone of their capability tries to invade their territory (learn territoriality here).

The need for fame is so dangerous that it can cost you your afterlife. No doubt you are an excellent and pious preacher. But deep inside you, the desire for fame is burning your virtues like the fire turns wood into ashes. No matter how much effort you put, if your intention is not sound, you are not going to bring any positive change.

Don’t think that if you desire fame, you are not going to get that easily. It’s the Divine Law that for whatever you fight tooth and nail, you will get that thing. It’s so rare that you won’t get any results. And because you demanded fame sugarcoated by a good deed, you shall get the fame you wanted. But don’t think that you will get the actual reward for your virtuous act. That’s why you must be crystal clear in your intentions that whenever you take a step towards any spiritually right action, your actual self is not demanding anything but the willingness of The Almighty.

And Do You Know What Happens When You Stop Looking for Fame?

Your existence becomes a source of help for the oppressed. You now don’t go to people. People come to you. Just because you have stopped looking for fame, people are attracted to you because they know that their internal voices are being heard and acted upon by no one but you. This also proves that all humans are spiritually connected. And from these very humans, those who truly understand the purpose become the leaders.

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Abdul Aziz Khan

MISSION14 LTD. | Engineering, Vision, & Wisdom. Passionately writes what’s worth writing. Loves to understand the silence under the sky & light in the darkness.