Start Seeing Through the Need for Approval

There is a certain longing inherent in us to belong to something greater than ourselves. That longing that has a natural foundation is stolen very quickly, in fact it never has a chance to get off the ground. What happens? Remember grammar school? Remember how you began to notice that there were certain groups of people that maybe you wanted to belong to but they didn't want you to belong to them? From a very early age, we find ourselves being pushed along, looking to be accepted by our friends. That longing to be accepted -- which is very powerful -- doesn't end with grammar school. In fact, as we grow older and mature, that longing to be accepted blossoms and expands. We all went through that process of feeling quite often that not only weren't we accepted but that when we did what we had to do to get approved by others, often we didn't get the approval we were looking for.

What is the root of this endless compromise that takes place in us where we want to be accepted, and to be accepted we have to gain approval, and we sell ourselves no matter how we do it? The root of that which is forever seeking acceptance and approval in us is that which is forever telling us that we are unacceptable as we are. There is something figurative that lives in us, that actually causes, by its very nature, that feeling in us that as we are, it just is not enough. We are unacceptable as we are.

What is in us that feels as though it is unacceptable has to be the root of what drives us to always find acceptance. Can you see that is psychologically true? It's like a thorn. On a good day, it's not so bad, because on a good day your hair is right, you've got the right clothes on, the wind is blowing in your direction, and things are OK. Maybe you're even witty. There is no problem because "even if they don't like me, I like myself." But that nature disappears, and up comes this person who is doing a song and dance: "Hi. I'm Guy. Please like me. I'm nice." I do a song and dance, but I don't think I'm doing a song and dance until maybe the person doesn't approve of me, and then I go into a bigger song and dance, and if that doesn't work, I just close the curtain on the person because "there is something wrong with them."

What is it in us that has us not just believing that as we are, we're unacceptable, but serving the whole idea of being unacceptable to the point that we have sold our soul to gain it? You've heard the passage: "What does it profit a man to gain a whole world and lose his soul?" What do I lose my soul for? To gain what? To belong to something by which my sense of self is corroborated. I'm real because these people and this world agrees.

Here is what is at the root of, inside of ourselves, this unspoken silent killer called feeling that we are unacceptable as we are. It is, in short, the comparative mind. That is the source of all suffering relative to a person feeling as though they are always unacceptable as they are. Why is that so? What is a comparative mind?

A comparative mind is that which knows itself by what it is not. For example, we tend to know who we are by what we are not. Do you ever think to yourself, "I'm not enough; I need more money"? So you go and make more money. Then something happens, as it always does because you've defined yourself by that condition. And, as a rule, because everything is always changing, as soon as what has defined you "goes away," what happens to you? Down you go! You crash. And then you have to find something new to define yourself by again.

This is what it means to live by a comparative mind -- a mind that always gives us a sense of ourselves by thinking about something else. For the rest of your life, make the effort to be awake and watchful of what we have looked into here, so that little by little you can start to see that whenever we strive for approval and acceptance to lend us the feeling of being a part of life, this is actually what sets us apart from it.