Appreciation, acknowledgement, approval - a man seeks or craves all these from others. But why? Why do we have a need to be appreciated? Why do we need to be acknowledged by others? Why do we wait for approval? Don't we all, in some way or the other, feel good when we are praised? Is it an innate quality of human beings to thrive on these? I hope not.
The reason I am writing about this is I see every moment how it is affecting the quality of each one's life. Whether we agree or not, whether we are aware or not, we are looking for these appreciations/acknowledgements and approvals. A good and simple example is to ask ourselves if we are totally fine when we are ignored by others. If the answer is yes, then we are really doing great!
Few questions we can ask ourselves to become aware of ourselves -
Am I ok if an acquaintance does not smile at me
Am I ok if a friend does not greet me
Am I ok if someone does not respond to my messages
Am I ok if someone does not pick or return my call
Am I ok if someone does not appreciate my work
Am I ok if my close friends don't listen/value my words
Am I ok if someone does not say I look good when I dress up
The list can go on and on right?
And the answer to all the above and many more questions is that YES IT IS ABSOLUTELY OK, we do not need to be praised or acknowledged by anyone. IT IS OK!
Most of the time we tell ourselves that we don't care what others think, but the truth is somewhere in subtle ways it affects our mood. Let us try and not give the remote control of our moods to someone else.
If someone doesn't smile at us, let us give ourselves a huge smile :)
If someone doesn't greet us, let us say a big hello to ourselves
If someone doesn't pick up our calls, then we get more time for ourselves
If someone doesn't appreciate our work, we pat our own back
If someone doesn't say we look good, we look in the mirror and we know we look great!
These may seem very petty and silly. But these are the little demons that are hidden in most of us and we want to pretend they don't exist as it makes us look sad/petty/silly. But these subtle little demons have built a solid home in our minds since childhood. Remember how when a child makes sounds, we clap and cheer her. When a child walks we make it a big deal and clap. When a child holds a pencil and scribbles we say wow. So from birth we get used to these praises/cheering. So when we don't get them as we grow older and older, the expectation remains deep inside, though on the outside we claim that we don't expect. Food for thought :)
Let us always keep the remote control of our lives in our hands and see how life unfolds :)
Just like nature - just being - oblivion - doing its job
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