If you ever want to kill your mood or quickly go into depression, then spend your life seeking approval from others. When you look to others for a way to feel good, you’ll find yourself doing things to impress them in the hopes that they’ll complement you. At the same time, you’re handing the power to control your feelings over to them and taking it away from yourself.
I have people in my life that will always nitpick what I do. I could be elected president of the United States and their reaction would still be something like “well, Reagan won 49 states.” I’ve gotten over it, although I’d be lying if I were to say it doesn’t annoy me every now and then, but that’s the extent of it. I’d rather be annoyed than constantly try to be someone I’m not just to make other people happy or accepting of me.
We live in a society where everything is sensationalized. Celebrities flaunt clothing, homes and attend events that we can only experience in our dreams. We see ads on TV so we can borrow money for that huge home, luxury car or lavish vacation. All for what? So we can say we drive a Mercedes, live in a posh neighborhood or travel overseas?
The worst part is that even when you have all this, it’s still not enough. You need to have more to keep up with the Jones’. You need to remodel the house, upgrade the car and vacation more frequently so that you can keep up. In the meantime, people are talking behind your back wondering how you got the money, whether you can truly afford it or will find something to nitpick about.
To make matters worse, they could deny you their approval or the pleasure of them acting impressed. So you do something, you think it’s a big deal and they play it down, crushing your ego. The worst part about it is that sometimes these people do it on purpose. It can be quite disgusting at times how some people act.
When you focus all your energy on trying to impress someone else, what you’re really doing is setting yourself up for disappointment and failure. You’d be better off becoming the you that you want to be because at the end of the day, you’re the one who has to look yourself in the mirror when you brush your teeth. It’s hard enough to set the right goals and achieve them so you can live your dreams. Don’t hand that power over to someone else, you’ll end up on the proverbial treadmill — always running but never feeling you’re getting anywhere.
James Feudo owns the Boston Web Design Agency JVF Solutions and loves blogging about personal development and communication in his spare time.