If you haven’t noticed by my posts, I’m on a journey to find myself in this world. I know by nature that people are social, and this causes us to seek others approval. On the negative end of seeking approval is pleasing everyone so that we have more friends, or at least less enemies. In the attempts to please others we come off as what we want to be perceived rather than who we truly are. It’s not a bad thing to want to make others happy. It does come at a cost when you start to lose yourself.

When we look for praise from other people, we are actually looking for external validation. We are basically saying to yourself that you are not good enough until someone deems you good enough. This means we are filled with self doubt. In order to build confidence, we look to increase positive feedback. What if I told you that negative feedback isn’t negative? If you reject negative feedback without understanding why it’s negative to you, you could be rejecting alternative realms of possibility. Would you end your comedy career because your parents want you to be a doctor?

When we people please, we only get to see things as one way. There’s a reason why a limited majority feel like they reached their potential in life. When society tells you that you can’t be an artist without struggling, an actor without waiting tables, or a writer without struggle, we listen. We decide to go the easy route, never knowing what could have been if we had just listen tour heart and not other people. Taking risks always comes with scrutiny. Most of us decide not to take those risks because we are afraid of what people will say.

The Courage to Do Something Worthwhile

Mahatma Ghandi – assassinated. Martin Luther King Jr. – assassinated. Jesus Christ… I think you know where I’m going with this. As much as people in our history who made an impact are revered today, they were hated in their day. These men stood for love and yet were still killed. How can someone with the message of love still be disliked? The reason why they were killed was because they were doing something of impact. The average person who takes the suggestions of others will never have their name listed with those above. With these men having the purpose of love and ultimately being murdered, what are you doing with your life that would allow everyone to like you? If everyone likes you, you’re probably not doing something worthwhile.

The Real Ones Will Still Love You

You know what the best part about being yourself is? You can remove the people in your life that don’t love you for you. If you care about how other people think of you, your relationships are probably shallow. The social aspect we get from people pleasing is not very strong. How long do you think you’d have to keep the facade up so that the other person doesn’t see your true self? The people around you may not know the real you, and you may soon forget who that person is as well.

The other side of the coin is being your true self. Perfection is not possible and life is messy. There’s no reason to pretend that it isn’t. If you accept who you are, you can turn to people who also love you for who you are, weeding out those who don’t truly care about you. We are indeed social beings, but the type of love we need should be from people who will love us no matter who we are.