When others approve of what we say or do, we feel good; when they disagree with it, we feel bad. Their opinion of us, and how that opinion makes us feel, can have a positive impact on our lives. When we are told that we are on the right path, we gain strength and courage to continue. Wanting to be nice to everyone is something entirely different. We act good when we act, whether rightly or wrongly, with the sole purpose of gaining the acceptance of others.
Low self-esteem makes us think that the acceptance of others is necessary in order to feel good about ourselves. We do whatever it takes to get validation from others. For a while we feel good. Then we start to hurt. In trying to please others, we have degraded ourselves and forgotten our values. We realize that the acceptance of others will not fill the emptiness we feel.
We feel good about ourselves when we do the right things for the right reasons. We break the vicious cycle of wanting to please others all the time when we stop being solely motivated by their acceptance and start operating based on the will of our Higher Power. Perhaps then we will be pleasantly surprised to see that the people who are important in our lives will appreciate this change in us. But the most important thing is that we will feel okay with ourselves.
