Why should anyone care about your work?

Why should anyone care about your work? Why should someone care about what you are writing about for example? We all think we are special, that we deserve attention, and that what we are doing is the most important thing in the world or our field of expertise. I'm sorry to say this but if the majority of people think this, then it becomes a double negative and makes everything meaningless or not as important as you hoped. So why should someone pay attention to you and your work?

There are three fields that always come to mind when it comes to the reason to do or purchase something. We all buy things for a reason. Everything we do is for a reason, even eating an apple or picking up litter on the street has an underlining meaning to us, be it external or internal. I can only narrow everything that we do in our existence down to four categories.

• Entertainment

• Vanity

• Education

• Sustenance

Let's go through some examples.

We like watching movies or scroll on social media because it entertains us, it's a form of escapism or decompression. We own clothes, objects or assets we like because they make us feel good, or reflect who we are to the world, a form of vanity. We read or listen to people to learn about something new. To be educated, or for our own betterment or the betterment of others. Be it to do it ourselves, to understand or get a job. And we get jobs, we go places, own things or learn things so we can eat food, to survive. The only other category I have left out because everything we do alternately comes back to it is reproduction (sex).

An important clue to good consumption, Morris insisted, is that you should ‘have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful. [1]

So after learning our reasoning, why should someone care about you and your work? Well, they should care if it fits into one of those four categories. Now a lot of photography, books and art don't give us sustenance in terms of food, so we can rule that one out. What are we left with is entertainment, education and vanity. I would say that depending on your medium your work would fall into two of these categories. Youtube - entertainment and education. Painting - education and vanity. You can make up your own assumption about where your work falls.

Now that we know this we have to, at the very least offer two of these categories to become valuable for someone to care about our work. A purpose, a reason. What that reason is, is up to you. Myself, I write for my own education which is a form of thinking, which is completely selfish. Now for someone to care about my writing I need to offer, to give something. I would argue my work falls into education and entertainment. Vanity and sustenance are far from the words I put down. Where does your work lay?

Why should anyone care about your work? Why should someone care about what you are making? Because what you are making or producing gives value to the consumer. That value lies within two or more of these categories, to entertain, educate, satisfy the need or showcase their vanity and beauty or gives sustenance and nourishment to the consumer. Why should someone care, because you are giving meaningful value, and that value is needed by your audience?

[1]: de Botton, Alain ; The School of Life. Great Thinkers: Simple Tools from 60 Great Thinkers to Improve Your Life Today (The School of Life Library) (p. 146). The School of Life Press. Kindle Edition.