This week, I did my first ever public reading of my upcoming children’s book “Dot.” It wasn’t anything fancy. Nobody was dressed up. There were no big posters with my name on it. I did my first reading in my son’s preschool class.

It was kind of an impromptu thing. I had just received three super-special-secret hardcover, fresh-off-the-press copies of “Dot,” my children’s picture book, about a tech-obsessed little girl who learns the value of unplugging. Of course, I was thrilled to hold the book in my hands – a real, tangible, beautiful product – after a year of hard work. It was my morning to take my son to school, and I figured I would present a copy of the book to his preschool class, my first official signed copy.

“Dot!” my son exclaimed excitedly when he saw the book. I had often read it to my son at home as a test audience and through that, he had become familiar with the spunky, blue-haired girl gracing the book’s cover.

At school, I scrawled a quick signature on the inside cover and presented the book to one of the teachers. “How exciting!” she said, clapping her hands together. “Obviously, you need to read it to us!”

Moments later, over a dozen 2-and-3 year olds had stopped eating Cheerios and were now seated on a rug in the middle of the classroom, along with a smattering of parents who were still hanging around after fthe morning drop-off.

I proceeded to read the book. It was clumsy. I clearly had a lot to learn about reading a children’s book out loud to a preschool audience. But one thing stood out to me – how proud my two-year-old son looked.

Maybe “proud” is the wrong word. He definitely didn’t understand that I wrote the book. But I could sense that he knew something was special. I saw it in the way he said the words along with me, the way he smiled and laughed aloud through the whole thing, and the way he excitedly pointed out “mommy picture” on the back cover of the book to his classmates.

After gathering up my belongings to head out, I noticed he was in the corner, reading the book again. And later that day, his teacher told me that he and the other kids had asked her to read it three more times. In a short video one of the other parents took of my son reading the book out loud, he was beaming the entire time. As a parent, is there really anything else in the world better than that?

It made me think a lot about how we place such an important role in society on the validation we receive from strangers. A nice comment from a random person on social media can make my day. A snarky blog post about me from someone who has never even met me can reduce me to schoolgirl hysteria. And the more we share online, the more we open ourselves up to both the cheerleading squad and the peanut gallery of thousands.

But suddenly, all I could think about was that I had made my son proud. And that I felt proud of myself.

As a society we’ve always cared deeply about what others think of us. It’s part of being human. But in this age of super connectivity, when we can easily speak to the masses, and the masses can speak right back to us, everything is heightened to a new level and we need to remember to listen closely to the most important voices of all. You’re never anywhere near as wonderful or as terrible as strangers proclaim you to be.

It’s amazing that we live in such a connected world; one where we can easily share wonderful moments and interesting articles, one where businesses can get immediate feedback from their customers. We shouldn’t tune that out, by any means. Just remember that this same connectivity makes it easy to place the opinions of strangers on a far higher pedestal than they deserve. The next time someone outside your inner circle gives you a compliment or tries to take you down, try your best to take it with a grain of salt. Remind yourself of your own “Dot” moment, and continue to share away, listening to everyone, but placing far more weight on the opinions of people who truly, deeply know and love you.

Posted on 10/24/2013

Written by Randi Zuckerberg

Comments

comments