The desire to be admired
My 7 years old daughter has never asked me, "How do I look ?". No child requires any certificate or approval on How he looks. Every child behaves as if he or she is the celebrity. The kid considers himself as celebrity because he knows how to celebrate himself. Now, If we rewind our own life and look back into the past, We will also realize that up to certain age, Even we never required someone’s appraisal. The very simple reason is that till certain point of life, our focus was on to celebrate our 'existence’.
As we started growing, the people around us got divided into 3 groups. Those who admired us, those who criticized us and those who were completely indifferent to us. We started disliking those who used to criticize us, because they were doing serious damage to our self-esteem. As a child, we started believing that there is only one way to regain our self-esteem is to be with people who used to admire us. We used to compensate the criticism induced injury to our psyche by collecting admiration from others. And that’s how we used to feel good about ourselves. Gradually, Our self-esteem started becoming addicted to this admiration by others. We, who always used to be happy and self contented up to a certain point of life, suddenly started relying on others for approval or appreciation. and as we started growing, this slavery started increasing in so many different forms and ways.
Now, with the advent of social media like facebook, this slavery has reached to its new height. We all have become 'Like' dependent. that means, If only others will like me, then I will like myself. My face, My picture, My words, ideas or creations have to be liked or admired by others in order to be accepted by my own self. Isn’t it ? If only I become popular, I will like myself. Only because of these many 'IFs and BUTs’, we have become the slaves of admiration. The admiration pampers our ego and makes us feel 'wanted' in this universe.
The moment we start considering ourselves 'worthless’, we are engaging ourselves in slavery of admiration. This society, this world, this universe needs us and we do not need anyone’s approval or certificate to prove that. Our very own 'Being’, our existence on this planet itself proves that we have already been given the biggest complement by this universe.
Apart of homo sapiens, No other being analyses or doubts one’s value or need in this universe. The flowers never need any admiration to blossom and spread fragrance. Trees never wait for the admiration or encouragement to grow and bear fruits. Every small creature is here for some purpose. and that is to experience the life the way it is. We are not here to impress the universe, we are here to experience it through human incarnation. This universe accepts all of us the way we are and we don’t need to dislike ourselves for who we are. If the nature accepts us the way we are, why can we ? The more we rely on others' admiration for ourselves to get accepted by us, the further away we move from the very meaning of our existence.
Introverts never take revenge. They just walk away.
-Dr. Nimitt Oza
