Ever come home from a hard day and just feel like toking up on some compliments? Maybe sit down and drink a six pack of incoming phone calls? How about snorting some facebook friends? I’m not talking just one, I’m talking like 700+. Inject some high fives, ‘well done’s, some hugs? Pull out your bottle of besties, and pop a movie invite? Because there is nothing like getting high off of approval, right?
I have a friend who is the most organized and the most meticulous thinker that I know. It is refreshing. But he told me “Sean I don’t WANT those gifts. I want to be well spoken! I want to be an athlete!” Sometimes it seems people value the gifts that get them more praise than other gifts. Who hasn’t imagined themselves as a professional athlete, stadium going crazy?! (I hope other people do that, or else I really just threw myself under the bus there) Because I know we’ve all pictured ourselves winning an award, being the best at something, being recognized!
There are no Olympics for being organized. There is no plumbing-bee. There are no movies about excel spreadsheets transforming into spreadsheet-prime, and fighting off the evil google-docs. It is like we use our skills, and talents, and attributes to buy the drug of approval. If only I were funnier, then people would like me more. I could be better looking, and I’d get more attention. Maybe if I were an incredible athlete, people would notice me. Being liked is a drug, and we all have a bad habit. And like any drug, at first it works, but the next time around you need more, and more, and more. I don’t care if you’re in high school, college, getting married, or 60 years old. You have a being liked problem.
I think the more your giftedness translates into social acceptance, the more impossible it is to walk away from the addiction. But has it ever satisfied? Has it ever made anything better? In fact, in my experience, it has only made me more miserable! An ounce of disapproval feels like a quart (I don’t understand fluid measurements, so offer me some grace here [you get my point]). If one person doesn’t like you, it feels like the end of the world, whereas for other people they can just walk away and let it go. Like any drug addiction, my habit is becoming self destructive. I sometimes lose sight of who I really am, because I am too busy shaping myself around what other people want me to be.
So now what? Well it’s time to go clean. I’m not talking about adopting an attitude of “well who gives a rip what people think about you!” For one, it doesn’t work that way. Additionally, there is something to be said about having some accountability in who you are. That, I am okay with. I think the key, the trick, the rehab to healing, is to let go. I was once told that life isn’t about stopping something, it is about becoming someone. I have seen a lack of success in my life when I tried to just stop doing something. But what does it look like to start walking the other way?
Letting go of this addiction is to relinquish the need for people to all fall in love with you. Maybe we need to stop working so hard to get people to like us, and we need to start working very hard at getting us to like people. How different and full of life would we be if we could focus our efforts on loving well? What if we focused all of our energy into chasing after, and offering worth to the people we encounter every day. Our world would change, and we would be transformed. And if we all adopted this, then everyone WOULD be liked!
When you start living your life like this, the ironic thing is that people will like you. All people really want is to be listened to. We can all attest that people just want someone to like them. Let’s worry more about liking them. Isn’t it funny that the moment we let go and don’t care about how many people like us, everyone will begin to like us? The moment you don’t want it anymore, you get it. Easier said than done. Be free.
Yes. I do realize I asked 13 questions in this blog. My next blog will be about the drug of asking too many questions.
2 comments:
"You will make more friends in 2 months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you"
One of my favorite quotes. I completely agree. People are too caught up in what they want other people to do for them that they fail to realize that other people probably want the same thing. I like your ideas, Sean, I only wish that more people thought this way.
Wonderful post... and I want to attend a plumbing bee.
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