Seeking External Validation: You Are a Bubble Blown by Society
Had you not been told what to do, would you have done even one of the things that you currently do? Think of it. If nobody tells you to take a particular kind of education or a particular career, would you still go in that stream? Very unlikely. Most of that which we want is something we have been ‘made to want.’ You are not even a puppet. You are a bubble — a bubble blown by society. Once you start looking directly at yourself, the need for external validation then reduces.
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Questioner: I feel most of us strive for perfection, and in that road we often seek external validation. Even if we say we don’t want external validation, we are doing it for ourselves, but there’s this part of us that would love it if somebody compliments us, tells us we did great. Now you said imperfection is a very humane thing to have. Is this seeking external validation also a humane thing to have, or is this something negative that we should remove?
Acharya Prashant: See, when you say humane, you could either mean the socially conditioned human being or you could mean the natural, free, beautiful human being. Seeking validation from others is not really your natural state. Right? It comes from social conditioning.
If I want to control you all, right? I would say, “You know, you are my assessment of who you are,” which means I’ll dictate who you are. And I’ll call you all by certain, let’s say, numbers. On a scale of 100, you’re 78, you’re 64, you are 81, you are 92, just 54. And you, I don’t like you at all, 31. So that’s how you’ll be addressed.
