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Do you ever find yourself chasing people's approval?
Here’s the thing: you’re performing for an audience that doesn't care about you.
Remember the last time you changed your whole personality for someone?
Laughed at their jokes
Pretended to love their interests
Morphed into whoever you thought they wanted
That wasn’t kindness. It was betrayal to you and them.
Here's the brutal truth: You're shrinking yourself for people who won't even remember your name in five years.
Maybe it's that attractive coworker - suddenly you're dressing different, talking different, being different.
Maybe it's the successful friend - now you're inflating every minor win into some grand achievement.
Maybe it's literally anyone with more status than you - and there you go, performing your life instead of living it.
The more approval you chase, the less of you remains.
And the worst part is that they can smell the desperation.
So I have a question for you...
What would happen if you just... stopped?
Where It Showed Up in My Life
For the longest time, I'd look for the approval of the people around me.
If they thought something was weird, I didn't do it.
I'd laugh at jokes that weren't funny.
I'd go to hangouts I didn't want to attend.
I'd pretend to care about things that bored me to death.
I'd try to fit in as much as possible and not shake things too much.
Because shaking things meant becoming different, and becoming different meant getting kicked out of the tribe.
And we're wired to fear that exile more than almost anything else.
And this wasn't just approval by fitting in.
It was also approval by asking questions just to make conversations flow.
"Hey, what do you think I should do?" when I'd already decided.
"Is this okay?" when I knew it was.
"Should I?" when I was going to anyway.
And slowly, I began to rot inside.
Every fake laugh was a tiny betrayal.
Every suppressed opinion was a small death.
I felt like I was living a fake life, where I was doing things for the sake of others and wasn't living for the real me.
I was becoming a ghost of who I actually was.
So I started setting boundaries and went on a full quest to figure out who I was.
Started saying no to invitations that drained me.
Started expressing opinions that might be unpopular.
Started doing things that made me happy, even if they seemed weird.
And here's the thing - you can still hold those people dear.
Maybe they too are on their own paths of figuring out who they really are, and there's nothing wrong with that.
But, I began asking myself a very different question.
What if I didn't need their approval?
And more importantly… what if the cost of their approval was my entire identity?
What the Wisdom Reveals
In verse 9 of the Tao Te Ching, it says:
"The more you care about other people's approval, the more you become their prisoner."
Think about that for a second.
Every time you change yourself for someone's approval, you hand them the keys to your life.
By seeking approval of others, you begin to lose yourself in the process.
Your real self gets buried under layers of who you think you need to be.
And neuroscience shows that chasing approval literally rewires your brain for external validation.
In other words, approval makes you a dopamine addict.
And it's not you controlling it. It's Karen from accounting who doesn't even like you.
And you want to know what's even more interesting?
The person whose approval you're chasing?
Their need to be chased reveals their own insecurity.
And I know because I once loved being the one others sought approval from.
It made me feel important, until I saw the cost.
It's wounded people creating more wounded people.
And here's the kicker - people's opinions are constantly changing.
One day they might value looks so you try to look as good as possible to impress them.
Wreck yourself at the gym, buy clothes you can't afford, post the perfect pictures.
The next day, they might value intelligence.
So you pretend to read books you haven't touched, use words you barely understand.
Then they value success, so you inflate your achievements, hide your struggles.
Point is, it's a pointless pursuit.
You'll never be enough for someone who keeps moving the goalpost.
And even if you somehow become everything they want, they'll just find new standards.
Because people who need you to be different aren't looking for you - they're looking for a mirror.
How I'm Trying to Live Now
I don't think you should disregard society and become a menace.
We live in community, and some level of social awareness matters.
Don't be the person who uses "authenticity" as an excuse to be disrespectful of others. That's not what I'm saying.
But, letting go of the need to chase approval can work wonders in your life.
When you stop performing, you start discovering.
You'll begin to learn what you really love and that's powerful.
Maybe you actually hate parties and love quiet mornings.
Maybe you don't care about fashion but obsess over reading.
Maybe your "weird" interest is actually your purpose.
And the irony is that when you stop chasing approval, the right people are drawn to you anyway.
Because authenticity is magnetic in a world full of performers.
And the approval that comes from being yourself is the only approval that actually fills you up.
So start small: Say one true thing today that you'd normally keep inside.
Notice how it feels to be yourself, even for just that moment.
That feeling is what real freedom tastes like.
