Whether we want to admit it or not, our whole lives are based on the acceptance and approval of others. Face it, your pursuit of happiness isn’t because it truly makes YOU happy but makes you APPEAR happy to others.
Working extra hard to buy clothes by a “designer”, it doesn’t give you super powers or anything, it gives the ILLUSION that you are financially superior and therefore HAPPY. To people who don’t even really matter to you. And you really don’t to them. Conversation pieces, if you will.
Having a 100 bedroom home for 2 isn’t because you plan to expand your family exponentially, it’s because it’s something to TALK about. Something deep inside you believe will impress the imaginary masses. Make people like you; accept you for who you are. Or aren’t. Or portray. Or wish to be.
Stop. Take a deep breath. Think about you goals, dreams, desires, accomplishments. Are at least 75% of them to prove something to someone else? Impress them? What you’re proving isn’t the point, the point is- is it really for YOU?
Humans as a whole derive their pleasures and advancement on how much “better” or “different” they are than the next. Think about it. Comparing jobs, cars, homes, relationships, finances, education…the list goes farther than I have time for. The crabs in a barrel mentality is so real and so deeply ingrained in us that we don’t even realize it.
Reputation is the one thing I can say will have people living outside of their means, tolerance and capacity. All for the sake of saying “I can. I have. I did. I am.” When really it only matters to one because they believe it matters to all.
Maybe this is a personal epiphany and maybe I’m just choosing to share with the few people who read my rants. I’m guilty on multiple counts of living my life as expected by others. It’s a hard habit to break as it usually is learned as a child. Behave as others want and expect. Maybe I just want someone else to see it with me.
The Pinnacle 