There’s always something to howl about.

Approbation Junkies

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.

The Oatmeal has it right.

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.