Tag: approval

The Struggle Against External Validation

Leave a comment

I saw a quote today that said “Excessive approval seeking is rooted in an unstable sense of self.”

It’s a very interesting quote that made me stop and think. How many of us constantly need external validation? How many of us rely on it to make us feel better about ourselves?

What is the alternative?

We’ve grown up believing external validation is the only way to feel good about ourselves. If it’s not recognized by the people around us, what does that mean for our self-esteem?

When I was growing up, I taught every child in our group how to dance. The majority of performances that happened at family events were the dances that I choreographed and taught. Dancing as much as I did resulted in me trying out and making it on a couple of different professional Bollywood dance troupes. One day, there was a wedding in this family friends’ circle. It definitely hurt my feelings when the idea of hiring an outside group to perform was suggested. Didn’t these people know that my troupe was normally the one hired to perform? How did they not see that the talent resided within their own circle?

It was hard. Did that mean I wasn’t as good as I thought I was? It didn’t seem to matter that I had performed at some of the biggest venues in LA and with Grammy and Oscar Award winners. They wanted to hire someone else to perform at the wedding! What did it all mean? Maybe I wasn’t as good as I thought and had just gotten lucky all of those years.

Eventually, I had to learn to accept that I was good at what I did and if I was going to solely rely on outside approval, it was going to be a disappointing situation. Having that much self-doubt really sucked as well. The only way to make this work was to trust that I knew myself and my talent. I had to stop listening to what others were saying and listen to what I was saying instead.

More recently, social media makes this extremely difficult. The number of likes and shares has become a huge basis for validation. What if no one saw that we did something or achieved something? Does it mean we had no effect? Does it mean we aren’t talented or skilled or good-looking?

What if we all started looking internally for approval instead? I actively had to decide that I don’t want to live like this, constantly seeking approval. I want to feel good about myself and approve of myself. No one else gets a say in who I am or what I do. It’s a battle to not seek external validation but it’s one I’m willing to fight even when it’s hard.

What’s something that you find yourself seeking approval for? Could you try to approve of yourself and find a sense of stability there?

Passion or Validation?

4 Comments

Have you ever heard someone who talks about something they’re into and it is the most amazing thing they have ever experienced? And then they talk about something else and it’s just as amazing? Does it ever seem like some people are just really overly passionate about a few things?

I was wondering this the other day when I had heard a few people discussing different restaurants they had been to. Was it a real passion? If so, is it necessary to really emphasize what you feel or think about it?

I had always thought that if someone had a passion for something, it’d just show. You would notice by what they did or how they spoke about it. When people really get that over-excited about something, is it real or is it a show?

Maybe these people are really that enthusiastic about the things they talk about. Maybe passion about something just runs over and there’s no other words to describe it.

But maybe, sometimes, people are just a little too passionate because they want to sound like they really care about something. They want to validate that their opinions are important. Maybe if they sound passionate about something, other people will respect them more. It’s kind of like the whole idea of posting everything we think or do on a social media site just so we can count the likes and comments we receive.

When did we become so needy for others’ approval? Why do we have to be something we aren’t? Why can’t we just be satisfied in knowing we enjoy what we enjoy and not have to get validation for everything we do or say?

Love Who We Want

Leave a comment

Yesterday, I wrote about a teacher who was fired from my Catholic high school for marrying his partner of 10 years. 

Today, I want to hit a little bit closer to home with my culture regarding a similar issue. How free are we, as Indians, to love who we want? Is it possible to be with or even marry the person we want if they don’t fit into what our culture dictates is right for us? How much pressure do we even put on ourselves to fit into what we think is right? 

I’ve learned the hard way that what is right on paper isn’t what is right for me. But I had to go through a pretty big self-inflicted struggle to understand this. 

Even if we never hear anything from our parents or family about who we should end up marrying, there is this idea that we should end up with someone who is the same ethnicity and religion as we are. They should be equally matched in every way: looks, education, financially. And even if the pressure isn’t directly put onto us by someone else, we put that same pressure on ourselves. We want the approval of our community. And to get that approval, we have to fit into the mold that was shaped out for us and has been shaped out for us for decades or maybe even centuries. 

So what happens when we fall in love with someone outside of this mold? What happens when we realize that a relationship goes past the education and the looks and the families getting along? What happens when we realize that there is so many other aspects to consider that have nothing to do with what we have been taught? 

I have seen it go both ways. I have seen couples split up because one or the other isn’t approved by their family. Instead of fighting for their love, they choose their family and sacrifice their relationship. I have seen couples stay together and try to make their families understand their relationship.

So it’s a choice. It’s always a choice. Unfortunately, we can’t control the idea of what the perfect relationship looks like. But we can control how we react to the opinions of our relationship. There are still going to be times when the world won’t agree with a relationship. Is it worth it to fight for it? Or is it something that should be given up because it’s not “right”?

Should we love who we want? Or should we love who the world says we should?