Hello, I'm Mervi!
An artist, nerd and business sorcerer, dedicated to make world more beautiful and strange with art, illustrations and logos + to help you figure your sustainable business out.
Validation
I wish I didn't feel the need for external validation.
Lately those of us who are on Twitter have been watching the world's richest man struggling for validation. He has found out the people who have usually been brown-nosing and boosting him are not as many as those who just outright laugh at him.
He has begged money from a popular author, he has threatened brands who are pulling advertisement from Twitter, he has tried to create new rules to stop people from mocking him. It would be sad, if he wasn't so obnoxious about it.
If you have surrounded yourself with yes-men, who don't dare to challenge you, you are used to external validation. Even when you are wrong. And when that validation ends, you will find yourself in a scary and strange situation. External validation is addictive.
But even if you aren't that used to external validation, it's still something you will find yourself wanting, needing. It may even become the thing you believe you are entitled to. In the same way as does having gotten too much of it.
External validation gives you that great sensation you have done something right, something valuable. Yes, it makes you feel valuable.
To be above external validation would be a boss move. A godlike move, even. Although, if you look at existing bosses and the mythos of gods, they tend to strive on validation by their subjects.
There are people who claim not to care about such things as external validation. I don't believe when they say so. Their true nature will come out sooner or later. Just put them in the situation where the validation is taken away and look at them fall apart.
I doubt it is really possible for a human not to seek validation. At least not in societies where people are valued by things like productivity, success, power, wealth.
Needing external validation is often seen as insecurity. It may be so. But I'm sure everyone is sometimes so insecure they will search for validation.
Should you ever feel insecure of your need for validation, just remember it's not just you. You could be the richest man of the world and still you would desperately seek for validation. Just maybe refrain from having very extremely public meltdowns when you do.
Oh how I wish I didn't need external validation.
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