I wonder, with regard to an addiction to things, if there isn’t a deeper cause… maybe a hole that needs filling. I ascribe most of our eventual attacks on ego to a lack of continuity we create within ourselves, and our inability to either align our external actions or accept our internal truth.
Sean Purcell commented here, not long ago. Good stuff. I wanted to bring it to the forefront.
Here’s the thing: needing approbation from others has made me weaker than anything else. It’s made me a pawn of a dilettante, a hustler for a buck and it’s made me do all of the smarmy, seedy things I’ve ever done. The root cause has been making someone like me.
Think of this: when you’ve gone to a store with a big ticket item, and you get an ingratiating, smarmy salesperson there. His goal in life is to make you like him. Is there anything more repulsive? You see a car salesperson that wants you to seem like a friend. Is anyone fooled by the saccharine compliments? Anyone?
And if they convince you that you need to approve of them, you leave with a bad taste in your mouth, not unlike bile. I’ve been that guy, on both sides of the counter. I know.
It’s like going into a gentleman’s club, as if some dude in his late 40’s is gentrified by ogling daddy issue girls in their early 20’s.
Approbation is carbon monoxide. Seeking it in lieu of achievement means a death of a million cuts.
Jesus, also, has it right:
“So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. (Matthew 6:2)
And what a reward. Seriously. What a reward to have dirtbags approve of you.
We clamor for it…the approval of strangers….(or in the case of Real Estate conferences, strangers that cheat on their wives.) A standing ovation devoid of meaning? We haven’t achieved jack, but we want the adulation anyway. We do so much pandering.
To what end? Change the world or go home.
Teri Lussier says:
>And what a reward. Seriously. What a reward to have dirtbags approve of you.
Such an awful reward. We’ve all felt it and had to undo the emotional damage. The price is to big.
April 17, 2011 — 8:53 am