Seeking approval

In one way or another, we are all seeking approval. When we are very young we look for the approval of our parents. When we grow up we act to gain the approval of our peers. In interaction with others, we all too often measure our (self)worth by the amount of approval they are extending to us.
And perhaps the best, and from a certain perspective safest ways to feel validated and approved of, are ‘social media’.

Social media play into our want for instant gratification, and it gives this to us in a nice, concise form: the ‘like’. When we share (parts of) our lives on for instance Facebook, the number of friends our post reaches and the number of likes our post receives seem to not only show how well other people actually like that particular post, but also makes us feel good about ourselves. In other words, we feel like our (Facebook) friends are approving of what we are doing.
As we can post pretty much from anywhere, at any time; reactions to our post may start to come in immediately. Instant approval.

What we share usually is our own little niche.
Some people share the wonderful food that is just being served to them in their favorite restaurant, while others show their friends their healthy cooking skills. Some make social media their platform to protest politics, while others try and make the world a better place through thoughtful quotes, cute videos, and beautiful pictures.
In doing so, we not only seek approval from outside of ourselves, we direct precisely what we would like to be approved for…

And yet, in reality we are so much more than our presence on our preferred social medium!

It does bring up a couple of important questions.
Why are we looking outside of ourselves for validation? Why do we measure how well we are doing by what others think of the tiny tidbits of who we are that we share with them?
Wouldn’t it make more sense to evaluate how well we measure up to our own standards?

As long as we keep looking at (what we think) other people think of us as our approval rating or the measure of our success, we are denying ourselves the opportunity to be who we truly are.
When the things we say and how we say it are dictated by how well we think we are going to be accepted by those around us, we may not say what we think, but rather say what is socially acceptable in that particular situation.

In other words, as long as we choose to think, speak and act based on what what those around us do or say, we do not permit our true self to shine; we do not claim the empowerment we deserve.
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