My happiness does not depend on others, it depends on me. I choose to be free and happy.

There is a particular trap in waiting for a verdict. You finish something good and hold your own opinion of it in suspense until one specific person responds — and if they do not, or they are distracted that week, the whole thing sags.

It is not vanity. Most people were trained early to check a face before deciding how they felt.

Taking the verdict back does not mean needing nobody. It means being able to hold your own judgement of a day even when the approval is late, or absent, or came from someone who was thinking about something else entirely.