Disapproval 2009

     What is it that pushes us to conform? Some of us are able to break away and not worry what anybody else thinks, and some of us think we have accomplished the "break" until we're faced with a situation that has us under someone else's scrutiny.
     We are able to break free from the desire to impress others sometimes, but there are people in the world that we want to impress or at least have their good opinion, so we find ourselves vulnerable to their opinions.
     Recently we had houseguests that I would love to have think the best of me, but it isn't always possible to influence other peoples opinion. Many people have different values in life and therefore are not truly able to understand each other, the best we can hope for is to "agree to disagree". I recognized that my style left them a little uncomfortable, which in turn left me to meditate on this question, "why can't we be happy in who we are"?

     Shouldn't we be happy to think "Ahhh, thank goodness for differences? At least we don't look around and see everyone else as a mirror reflection of ourselves", but instead, we think, "why can't I be more like them?" It can cause us to feel disappointed in ourselves.
      I want to be me, I am me, I don't really want to be like them, I just want them to accept me. It probably is an illusion that people "accept" someone different from themselves anyways, maybe it's more accurate to say they "tolerate" them. I want to be the person that is strong enough to stand alone against disapproving looks, I want to be true to myself, I want to follow my North Star. I always come back to shrugging off the looks, the feelings of disapproval and telling myself it doesn't matter, but really it causes a part of myself to shrivel up and hide.