Create Your Own Acceptance
One of the hardest ventures in life is learning how to look to yourself for acceptance. We often spend most of our time looking for acceptance and approval in our loved ones or people we don’t even know. It can become a real danger because when their acceptance and approval is gone we are left reeling. Epictetus a famous philosopher has a saying that goes “If you are ever tempted to look for outside approval, realize that you have compromised your integrity. If you need a witness, be your own.” What I get from this is when we seek outside approval we comprise the foundation that holds us together, we lose sight of who we are. We become wonderful and beautiful only when others think so. We also become terrible and ugly when others think so. We think we are only doing a good job when someone else says so. We think we are only proud of ourselves when someone else says so. Once we look to someone else’s vision of us we become easily manipulated by their opinions, we become victims of their projections. The only way to avoid all of this is to look inward, to accept ourselves and everything we are.
What does it mean to look inward? How can we accept ourselves? I suppose it truly is a subjective thing, what it means to you. The best way I can describe is based on what works for me. What I am getting at when I say look inward, it must be an inward approval. The foundation of your acceptance must be in your mind, not in the mind of others.. And It starts with setting goals and working toward them. Once you can create direction you will start to see it unfold in front of you. Then you will gain confidence and be able to build off of it. At times things wont go your way, you won’t be meeting your own expectations. That is okay, you must understand that. These are the moments when you must work harder. The harder you work in the tough times, the easier the ride is during the tough times. One of easiest way to accept yourself is see your work unfolding in front of you.
Another key component to accepting yourself is being honest with yourself. We tend to lie about if we are doing our best work. We tend to lie about our effort toward becoming better. The absolute worst person to lie to is yourself. When we are broken by our own lies we tend to soak up the affirmation of others and break even further at their slights. When you are truly honest with yourself you can accept all of your faults and start to improve on them. Being dishonest is letting the faults fester like an untreated wound, easily infected by cutdowns of others. When you are honest with yourself, you are slowly improving. Slowly improving makes everything outside less relevant.
When we are setting goals and being honest with ourselves we begin to witness our changes, our power, our growth. Confidence starts to grow, our behavior becomes more positive and we start to glow. Then of course there is the question of what about external features? Not everyone looks the same. Not everyone fits the social narratives of the culture or society they live in. Those things are not something that should be looked to. You are what you are physically. You must look in the mirror and see what you need to and can improve on. If its because you want someone else to notice you it is going to be cheap and as fickle as the wind. However if you are working to improve your health and can see those things unfold you are not going to worry about the judgments of others. It doesn’t matter if you are a little overweight or dont have the most symmetrical features when you are doing your best in all areas. It only matters when you aren’t doing anything about it.
Ultimately self confidence and approval comes down to doing your best and being honest with yourself. Then of course when those things are not happening weathering the storm of self doubt and working harder. Life is no easy task, it takes effort and hard work to accept ourselves for everything we are and be happy. We all have the strength to build a strong foundation and sail through the journey of life. It just starts with one moment of working in that direction. One moment to build off and grow in a positive direction.
