Seeking Approval

Whether ppl want to admit it or not, we ALL have or do worry about what ppl say (think) about us. It's perfectly natural to desire that everyone either like us or at least, not talk negatively about us.

Unfortunately, there will always be those someone's who don't have anything nice to say. So how do we deal with that? I finally started asking myself a few questions. The first weren't "why don't they like me or why don't they approve?" I asked myself "how do "I" feel about the person being negative; not about their negativity towards me, but them as a person." Many times I found I didn't care much for their personality/decisions either. So the next question was, "If I don't particularly like them, what makes me so special to think they should like me?" I could have answered "because I'm really nice and fun and...and...and..." But the truth is, I had to accept that just as I don't care to be around certain ppl, there are ppl that don't care to be around me. Doesn't make me less of a"nice, fun, and...and...and person," but it does make me aware that I'm not everyone's cup of tea. When you get "ok" with that, you just don't pay attention to the negativity or need the approval of others. I also found that IF by chance I genuinely liked the person that I "just couldn't live up to," then I needed to ask some real questions. NOT "why don't they like/approve of me?" But "what is it about their judgement of me that I trust more than my own?" Sometimes that means admitting we need to make some personal changes OR we make the decision to put more value in our opinion of ourselves and then, their approval is not needed." When you get "ok" with that, you can still like that person, but not be bothered by their opinion because you KNOW it isn't necessary for you to be "nice, fun, and...and...and..." People who take steps to understand why THEY think and feel the way THEY do rather than put stock in what others think and feel tend to just NOT care or need the approval of man.